Finding Nicole (2025) by Harley Wallen


Director: Harley Wallen
Year: 2025
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Thriller

Plot:
Meeting her future husband in college, a woman marries the man of her dreams and tries to start a family with him. The longer they remain together, though, his violent and abusive side comes out to the point that he starts constantly physically abusing her, to the point that she finally decides to get away for good, only to learn he has no intention of doing so.

Review:

This was a fairly decent if somewhat problematic genre effort. The film works best when trying to highlight the strength and courage it takes to bring domestic and spousal abuse to the forefront, where this paints such a portrayal of her journey to fight back that it becomes hard not to root for her. Seeing the change in personality he undergoes throughout their relationship, from seemingly solid romantic partner to later giving off subtle red flags that are completely ignored in favor of continuing the status quo, and finally a full-bore abuser that has the system in his pocket. Knowing the police officers to the point of getting away with everything simply because they're old friends and can pull strings to get the incidents to slip through the cracks, even though the constant threats she offers to leave her alone make it seem likely he'll get away with it. These later scenes then come together to highlight how she’ll get to the point of wanting to be free and on her own as a fighter in the best way possible.

To do that, though, it has to get past some really uncomfortable moments, both in terms of the physical and emotional abuse inflicted on the wife to get his way, and the preposterous nature of some of the concepts on display to do that. These later scenes are more frustrating than anything, as the film’s real-life biopic might’ve made them genuine incidents that really occurred, but they come off as ludicrously over-the-top in the context of a feature film adaptation, where it never feels like an escalation of his attempts for control but more a means of keeping the film going to a specific running time. It’s especially egregious when it starts to bring up the plot to kill her through one of the prison inmates, as that becomes such a laughably ludicrous notion that it renders anything completely moot about why the system is keeping him aroun,d and yet is passed off without any kind of genuine concern for how far he’s willing to go to perform something like this. It just becomes fully comical and ruins the immersion of the story, but the story as a whole is still rather enjoyable.


Overview: ***/5
An intriguing if somewhat far-reaching genre thriller, the story as a whole is a great look at the dangers of abuse and what hope can be found in those situations, while being tough to buy as a work of fiction. Those with an appreciation for the films’ attempted empowerment, find the subject matter intriguing, or who are fans of the creative crew, will have a lot to like here, while most others might want to heed caution.

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