Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This film affected me deeply. When it was over, I sat in the dark for a long while... I contemplated the meaning of life and Heaven versus Hell and a million other things. Viewers will have different experiences watching it, based on their personality types, beliefs, and upbringing. Without a doubt, the film is disturbing. But it's also REALITY. Maria Bello, Jason Patric, and Rufus Sewell gave OUTSTANDING performances. I was completely immersed in the characters. Nancy,(Maria Bello) was a tragic character. I was heartbroken for her. The character of Louis, (Jason Patric) was intensely intriguing- I loved how his past remained a mystery. Albert, (Rufus Sewell) played someone we all know in our personal lives. The intermingling story was brilliant! The scenes went from gripping & provocative to fascinating and compelling to shocking and horrific. I was on the edge of my seat for most of the film. Writers Lee Ross & Pamela Cuming are fantastic storytellers. (Lee Ross also wrote Benjamin Troubles, another great film to watch.) I was very moved by Downloading Nancy. Still am. GREAT FLICK- A MUST SEE!

Synopsis and title don't reveal if it's gonna be a confusing movie or not. However, in the first few minutes we can already see how disturbing it will be. The main couple is completely weird; in the first scenes the spectator is able to notice the girl is a sadomasochist-- and her husband may be as well. The couple has a strange relationship and we don't understand if they love or hate each other. Many scenes come and go and sometimes spectator can't understand what's going on and what has already happened. I only found myself entertained when the "murderer" came by their home and started talking to the husband; that scene had everything to be powerful, but in the end, fails-- as the rest of the movie. I simply couldn't watch it any longer since it became extremely boring and out of sense. Skip this one.

Low rating is due to film shortcomings and not content of the movie or graphic scenes – I am perfectly fine with the subject matter.Maria Bello's portrayal of Nancy is lacking on many levels. I feel no empathy towards her and further into the movie I begin to look forward to her death to end her whiny self-absorbed and childish behavior. Another walking skeleton actress who needs to eat something because the sex scenes were not sexy or engaging. How we are supposed to believe that not only one man, but two are in love with this train wreck is beyond me and derails the entire movie.I understand that her childhood abuse contributed to her emotional problems, but leave the marriage like every other dysfunctional person; there were no kids to keep her there (another understandably depressing issue but of course she can't adopt, right?). Nope. She just stays and tortures her husband and flings potatoes at him and wonders why he won't screw her – that's hot…not. If she really wanted to be tortured and killed, then go live on the street and get raped and beaten, probably killed. Nope. Comfy house with husband worrying about her while she emails other men and cuts herself.I've seen the criticism and discussion of the husband Albert as being unresponsive and contributory. I feel that this portrayal or opinion is unfair. He seems to be worn from 15 years of marriage to this roller-coaster twit; every emotion has already been extracted many times over so what is the use. Sewell has it down perfectly for me. If the husband was making her unhappy, then she had every opportunity to leave over 15 years. It just looks like she enjoyed being supported so she did not work and could concentrate on her neuroses.Patric as the boyfriend/killer was okay. Maybe it was the script, but I just did not get enough conviction that his character derived pleasure and satisfaction.I had a classmate that committed suicide in 6th grade. By this real life standard, Nancy is an epic failure at her deepest desire to end her pain this far along. The story then becomes one of fetish and narcissism instead of desperation. There is no discussion to be had regarding lack of understanding, compassion or experience in the aforementioned subjects; I have plenty and draw from real life my assessment that the characters and storyline are not cohesive and true to life. This story is inspired by a real life story – I did research it after I viewed the movie. It also solidified my opinion more.

As is often the case, films about self-loathing characters do not usually make for good drama. 'Downloading Nancy' is no exception. It's supposedly based on a true story about a woman who's murdered at her own request by someone she meets over the internet.The protagonist is Nancy (Maria Bello) who is married to Albert (Rufus Sewell). Albert is a successful software developer who has developed a golf game which his company has successfully marketed to various bars and bar/restaurants. Unlike most human beings, Albert has virtually no positive attributes (except for his ability to be successful in the business world). Throughout the film, Albert has a grim and dour expression on his face. He has no sympathy for his wife with all her emotional problems and resorts to patronizing prostitutes. When his wife asks for sex, he punishes her by masturbating in her presence instead.Nancy is equally one-note as a character. Not only has she had a loveless 15 year marriage but was sexually abused by her uncle when she was growing up (thankfully there are no flashbacks of that back story in the film). Her self-loathing takes the form of self-mutilation and a result, she's forced into therapy. However, she has such contempt for her therapist that no progress can be made.Finally, Nancy is so depressed that she contacts Louis over the internet. He's sort of a sadomasochistic gigolo, who has sex with women for money while inflicting massive amounts of pain to boot. It's revealed that Louis has two children but no longer sees them (the children's mother no longer wants anything to do with him).Nancy's plan is to first have painful sex with Louis and then have him kill her. There's a particularly unpleasant scene where Louis has sex with Nancy while slashing her vaginal area with a broken piece of glass. These scenes are shown as flashbacks after Louis pays a visit to Albert who ties him up and strikes him with a golf club. It seems that Louis has a two-fold plan in going to see Albert: 1) berate him for his treatment of Nancy and 2) enjoy the beating he receives. It takes awhile before Louis will reveal Nancy's fate—first, he forces Albert to do him the favor of taking his dog to a relative so someone will care for it in the future. Nancy's fate of course is that Louis finally ended up choking her to death (but showed some hesitation first as he made it clear that he had some 'feelings' for her). We soon learn that Louis is imprisoned for life for Nancy's murder.What exactly are we to take away from a film such as Downloading Nancy? Are we supposed to feel sorry for victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence? Is that the main point of the film? Is sympathy for Nancy actually warranted? I don't think so. The film's writers create a straw man in the character of Albert—someone who is so cut off from his emotions that he is the one that is held responsible for Nancy's decline. But are people so one-dimensional in real life? I think not. They have the repulsive Louis, a man who makes a living by inflicting pain, come over and berate Albert for neglecting Nancy. Furthermore, his expressions of love towards Nancy (before he kills her), is supposed to show his 'sensitive side'.In the end, it matters little whether the filmmakers have defined where their sympathies lie with the various characters in the film. They are so bent on titillating their audience with scenes of gratuitous violence, that Downloading Nancy becomes nothing more than an exercise in poor taste and soft pornography.