Finding Nicole (2025) Review
Director: Harley Wallen
Cast: Kaiti Wallen, Mari G, Shawntay Dalon, Pierre S. Aristide, Sean Whalen
Cert: tbc
Running time: 89 mins
Directed by Harley Wallen, this hard-hitting drama is based on the true story of Domestic Abuse survivor Nicole Beverly. To that end, it’s adapted from Beverly’s book (“Finding Nicole: A True Story of Love, Loss, Betrayal, Fear and Hope”) by screenwriter Geoffrey D. Calhoun, with both Beverly and Wallen receiving story credits.
The film uses a flashback structure, intercut with present-day sequences as Nicole (Kaiti Wallen, the director’s partner) faces her violently abusive husband Warren (Mari G) in court. Accordingly, the flashbacks detail Nicole and Warren’s first meeting (they were high school sweethearts) and the subsequent deterioration of their marriage, with Warren given to bouts of violent anger, driven by both jealousy, rage issues and alcohol.
As the title suggests, the focus of the film is on Nicole’s survival, and her desire to maintain her sense of self, as she fears her entire identity being subsumed by being a domestic abuse victim. With that in mind, one of the film’s most effective scenes has Nicole pointedly refusing the chance to change her identity and go into Witness Protection, instead opting to essentially accept her current situation and to continue her fight for justice.
The flashback sequences are undeniably powerful, creating a strong sense of fear and powerlessness. And as played by Mari G, Warren is a proper monster – an early scene has him crushing an injured bird in his hand, in front of his six year old son, just in case the audience were in any doubt about what kind of a grade A bastard he was going to turn out to be.
However, the rest of the film is less successful. The courtroom scenes lack tension, despite an appropriately despicable prosecution lawyer performance by Sean Whalen, and they unfold in largely predictable fashion.
On top of that, the film is padded out with various filler scenes that have little or no impact on the story. For example, nothing comes of Warren’s cop best friend Bobby (Pierre S. Aristide), whose character is seemingly set up for finally seeing Warren for who he really is, yet that revelation never comes.
On a similar note, Nicole is shown taking self-defence lessons and learning how to use a gun, yet those elements never come into play later in the story, which is surely some sort of violation of the Chekov’s Gun rule? (If a gun is seen in Act One, it has to go off by Act Three).
The performances are something of a mixed bag too. Almost everyone is guilty of overdoing it at some point. For example, Mari G is properly terrifying when he’s being charming and charismatic (he has impressive screen presence), but as soon as he goes full psycho and starts ranting about how Nicole doesn’t love him enough or whatever, it starts to feel false and the impact is lost.
For her part, Kaiti Wallen nails the vulnerability and the helplessness, but the rest of her performance is largely one note. In addition, Shawntay Dalon is good value, for the most part, as Nicole’s lawyer, Shonda Wright, but she turns it up too high for her key courtroom speeches, making those sequences feel less real as a result.
It also doesn’t help that the film looks extremely cheap, with bargain basement production values that extend to some awful-looking opening credits, which is never a good sign.
That said, this is never less than watchable throughout, and it highlights an extremely important issue. Indeed, the chilling statistics in the captions at the end might just be the film’s scariest element.
check out more reviews at Action Reloaded
