Black Mirror Review: “Nosedive”
By contrast, the second episode, ‘Nosedive’ put technology back into scarier territory. Written by Rashida Jones, this ranks as one of ‘Black Mirror’s best-ever episodes, with it grounded by an amazing performance by Bryce Dallas Howard as the ambitious heroine. In this version of the future, social media has become all important, trumping wealth and everything else. If you don’t maintain a certain star rating on your social media, you can lose you job, be excluded from places and worse. Howard plays a 4.2/5 who, after receiving a wedding invite from her 4.8 childhood friend, sees a way of climbing the social ladder.
The satire here is delicious, with everyone having to affect a faux pleasant demeanor, where any encounter that’s laced with even the slightest edge can get you a down vote. Here we see just how bad a day can really go in a world like that as Howard tries to make her friend’s wedding. Alice Eve plays the picture perfect friend, who’s like that Instagram loving friend of yours maxed-out to nightmare levels. Eve is hilarious as she answers phone calls in perfect, sexy poses to max-out the chance of anyone ‘liking’ the exchange, and her wedding proves to be a masterfully funny sequence beautifully directed by Joe Wright.
(source)
September 13, 2016 — “Happy days for Pete’s Dragon Star Bryce Dallas Howard”
— “I have memories of my dad being there but we were actually on the set and would have tutors or go to a local school. I don’t remember him ever missing anything with one exception,” she says. “When I was young and was captain of the varsity basketball team, he was shooting something and didn’t make it to the games and he still says it’s his biggest regret in life, which I’ve told him, ‘dude, you’re off the hook!'”
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