Downloading Nancy at the Sundance Film Festival

The Sundance Film Festival provides one time during the year for artistic filmmakers from around the world to showcase their most brilliant work, and it seems like every year there is one filmmaker who rises above the rest. This one filmmaker creates a work of art that moves people on a deep emotional level and this year, it seems to have been director, Johan Renck. Rench directed the film, Downloading Nancy and it's causing quite a stir at the festival.

Downloading Nancy is about a depressed housewife who looks to escape from her miserable life and turns to the Internet to ease her pain. Nancy, played by Maria Bello, meets a man on the Internet and hires him to kill her, but not in a usual fashion. She, in fact, hires him not only to kill her, but to also torture her in every sense of the word. Nancy leaves her husband, played by Rufus Sewell, with a note, letting him know that she is departing and will not return. Nancy then begins her trip to meet the man who will end her life. When she meets this mysterious stranger, played by Jason Patric, a turn of events occurs and Nancy ends up falling in love with her killer.

Speaking of death and torture by Internet love affair, the movie, Hard Candy deals with a fairly different plotline. Hayley Stark, played by Juno star, Ellen Page, is a young 14-year-old who meets an older man in an Internet chat room. At first, it seems like she is interested in the older man, but once she meets him and gets inside of his home, her intentions become clear. The young teenager seeks to expose the older man for the paedophile her truly is by finding multiple ways to torture him until she convinces him that suicide might just be better than dealing with the pain she wishes to inflict on him.

Much like the film, Downloading Nancy, Secretary, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, features a depressed young woman who, after taking a job as a secretary, begins a sadomasochistic relationship with her boss. This film, directed by Steven Shainberg, takes the audience along in the journey Lee Holloway (Gyllenhaal) travels to find and embrace her true self.

Going along with the theme of unhappy wives and brutality is the movie, Enough, with Jennifer Lopez. It's one of those "oldies but goodies". It features a woman who thinks she's found the perfect husband until he starts physically abusing her. She flees with her daughter and in the end, kicks his butt!