Jennifer Kent has avoided the dreaded sophomore slump with The Nightingale, her second film after her staggeringly great debut, The Babadook, and she also reveals that her artistic field of view isn’t particularly limited. Like The Babadook, The Nightingale also revolves around a woman suffering from extreme trauma and the negative ways that trauma leads her to act, but in just about every other way, the films are incredibly different. In The Nightingale, Aisling Franciosi stars as Clare, an Irish convict that’s been shipped to Australia as the indentured servant to a preening, abusive military officer, played by Sam Claflin. Things are bad for Clare already when the movie starts, but when things take a decided turn for the worse, Clare’s response to the horrible tragedy she suffers is to set off on a path of bloody revenge. As she sets off into the wilderness, she gains the services of an Aboriginal guide, Billy; the two loathe each other initially, but as their journey goes on, they find themselves bonding over the one thing they have in common: their shared suffering. They both have nothing left to lose; the grim world of the “English” has taken everything from them both.
This is an incredibly compelling film, but it’s not for the faint of heart. This film reportedly had some high profile walk-outs at some of its early film festival appearances and it’s easy to see why. The film’s treatment of sexual assault isn’t exploitative; the rape scenes (yes, I said sceneS) are harrowing, even as they’re decidedly not graphic. And no living thing, man, woman, child or animal, is off limits when it comes to the gruesome, often shocking violence of the brutal world Kent conjures up here. The performances add to the rawness of the film. Aisling Franciosi gives an undeniably star-making performance; she shows us both the steely, unstoppable force of Clare’s rage and the fragility of a woman wracked with sorrow. I’ve seen Sam Claflin in quite a few things and I can honestly say he’s never been good before this, but he’s quite remarkable here. Clearly it’s time for him to ditch the dashing romantic leads and start playing the heavies, because he’s a real revelation as the arrogant, psychopathic villain of the piece. Baykali Ganambarr is very good as Billy, a character hiding a deep well of suffering behind an abrasive exterior, and Damon Herriman, fresh from playing Charles Manson, not once, but twice, is wonderful as Claflin’s repulsive second-in-command.
Anyway, the film is divisive in a lot of ways and I’ll admit that I was initially unsure how I felt about the last ten to fifteen minutes. I’m not going to give any spoilers at all, but I will say that I’ve thought about it a lot since I saw the film and I can honestly say that I now really do feel like the decisions Kent makes as a writer in those last minutes of the film are the right ones to make. I respect her for not taking the easy way on the ending; it would have been very simple to just give us a kind of classic “revenge movie” ending and it would have been incredibly cathartic. But she’s up to more than just making a revenge movie here; she’s up to making us think about revenge in a different way than I was expecting to and I really kind of want to see the movie again with my newfound understanding about where Kent is going to leave these characters and this story. It’s a more thoughtful way to end the film in a lot of ways and it’s given me a lot to chew on over the last few days. The Nightingale has a flaw or two here or there, but, on the whole, it’s a deeply moving, harrowing, thought-provoking film that took some turns I didn’t entirely expect and as a second film, it’s kind of as amazing as The Babadook was for a first one, if that makes any sense. Kent’s poised for a hell of a career and I, for one, can’t wait to see where we go together next. 4 stars.
tl;dr – a fantastic ensemble & a script that has more on its mind than you’d think; a masterpiece that succeeds as a gripping example, & a thoughtful exploration, of the revenge film. 4 stars.