Nerve is a 2016 American techno-thriller adventure film directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman and written by Jessica Sharzer, based on the 2012 novel of the same name by Jeanne Ryan. The film stars Emma Roberts, Dave Franco, and Juliette Lewis, and revolves around an online truth or dare game, which allows people to enlist as "players" or "watchers" and as the game progresses, the players are contacted and invited to participate in more dangerous dares than their prior ones.
The film premiered at the SVA Theater on July 12, 2016, and was theatrically released on July 27, 2016, by Lionsgate. It received positive reviews from critics for its energy and the chemistry of its cast, and grossed over $85 million worldwide against a $19 million budget.
Plot
High school senior Venus "Vee" Delmonico longs to leave Staten Island for college, but is reluctant to tell her mother, due to them still mourning the recent death of Vee's brother. Her friend Sydney is popular on Nerve: an online reality game where people either enlist as "players" or pay to watch as "watchers". Players accept dares given by the watchers in order to receive money and a spot in the final.
After Sydney chastises Vee's unadventurous nature, Vee decides to sign up as a player on Nerve. Her first dare is to kiss a random stranger. At a diner, she kisses Ian, who dances and sings to Vee, revealing he is another player on a dare. The watchers dare Ian to take Vee to Manhattan, and together, they travel to Manhattan and complete several dares, such as trying on expensive clothes, Vee getting a tattoo and Ian driving his motorcycle at 60 mph blindfolded. This, as well as Vee and Ian's chemistry allows them to become one of the top players on Nerve.
Jealous of Vee's popularity on Nerve, Sydney accepts a dare at a party to cross a ladder between two buildings, but she bails during the dare and is eliminated from Nerve. Vee arrives at the party and catches Sydney making out with J.P, a boy Vee has a crush on. As Vee and Sydney argue, Vee discovers from her hacker friend, Tommy that Ian was dared into bringing Vee to the party and incite an argument between her and Sydney. Vee receives a dare to complete Sydney's dare of crossing the ladder between the two buildings, which she completes. Realizing how dangerous Nerve is, Vee attempts to report the game to the police but is disbelieved. As a result, all of Vee's earned money is removed from her account, as well as in her mother's account. Nerve player, Ty knocks Vee out in order to keep her in the game.
Vee wakes up in a shipping container, where she finds Ian, who confesses that he and Ty were players whose friend was killed in a dare. When they tried to alert the authorities, their families' jobs, bank accounts, and identities were confiscated. Vee has joined them in the secret third category of the game: "prisoners". If a prisoner can reach and win the day's final round, they regain everything.
Tommy and Sydney decide to help Tommy's hacker friends to try and disable Nerve by altering the game's online code in order to prevent Vee from playing the game, but since all the watchers phones and profiles act as a distributed server, this prevents them from completely disabling Nerve.
Vee wins a spot in the final of Nerve, and Ian completes a dare in order to a gain a spot in the final, which takes place at Battery Weed. At the final, Vee and Ian are dared to shoot each other with a gun, which they both refuse to do. Ty then takes Ian's place in the final and casts a vote on wherever or not he should shoot Vee. The watchers vote yes in a majority, to which Ty then shoots Vee who seemingly dies in Ian's arms.
Tommy and his hackers are able to modify Nerve’s source code to decrypt the watcher's usernames into their real names as well as sending them a message: "You are an accessory to murder". The panicked watchers log out of the game, closing all the servers and ending the game. Despondent over Vee's apparent death, Ian aims his gun at Ty, but Vee stops him, revealing that she and Ty had staged her murder in order to scare the watchers into shutting down their profiles on Nerve and end it permanently. Tommy and his hackers are able to restore the money to all of the players.
A few months later, Vee and Sydney have reconciled, Vee and Ian are a couple, and Vee is attending college. As Vee and Ian watch the sunrise, he reveals his true name to be Sam.