Nancy Leopardi‘s The Cure is another film that, like The Substance, satirises the beauty and wellness industries. Instead of the customary body horror in which this sub-category of the ‘eat the rich’ trend usually lurks, Leopardi’s ambitious but fatally messy movie is a conspiracy-driven drama with lots of promise, but with muddled storytelling.

Ally Braun (Samantha Cochran) is a 16-year-old girl celebrating the 10th anniversary of her adoption by ultra-wealthy parents Jeff and Georgia (David Dastmalchian and Ashley Greene). For all of the luxury – and an army of staff – at her disposal, Ally’s severe lupus means her parents’ glassily modernist home is more of a gilded cage. Sneaking off during a function, she meets Brook (Sydney Taylor), a girl of her own age who has trespassed onto the beach by the house. Jeff and Georgia employ Brook to be a friend for Ally, which opens several cans of medical-grade worms when the perceptive Brook finds the blandly perfect facade of Ally’s parents to be hiding something sinister.

There’s a lot going on in Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer (writers of Steven Soderbergh’s Unsane) script. There are hints of hardy perennial tales like Bluebeard and innumerable vampire tales, along with modern medical concepts like Munchausen syndrome by proxy and the obsession with anti-aging practices among the super-rich. It often feels like a tech-savvy spin on a Virginia Andrews story. But it never quite coalesces into something satisfying in terms of its narrative ambitions. It’s also oddly-paced, spelling out over a ponderous second-act what is clearly obvious from its earlier, visual storytelling, before suddenly hurtling into a third act that goes off like a champagne cork, with a similar lack of control in what sprays forth. There are revelations that undermine the emotional stakes, and leaps of logic that do the same to the narrative.

Yet it remains a watchable enough little drama, not least thanks to some game performances. Dastmalchian in particular turns his ability at portraying oddballs and outsiders into a more constrained, quiet type of menace, even if he’s not given much scope to play outside of that furrow. And if you want to know the icy vibe that Greene is bringing; Georgia would absolutely be played by Nicole Kidman if there was a hefty budget. Young Cochran is a likeable heroine, doing a good job of anchoring the increasingly messy proceedings.

The Cure is a film that is admirably stacked with ideas, but far less admirably scripted, which leads to an ultimately fairly unsatisfactory experience, albeit one that does just enough throughout to hold the attention while you wait for it burst into life. Burst into life it does, but in a rather perfunctory fashion which does something of a disservice to some of the interesting themes it was trying to explore.

Available to stream on-demand from Mon 13 Apr 2026