The Nightingale

Official Australian release date: 29/8/19. Viewed: 28/8/19.

Director: Jennifer Kent

Actors: Aisling Franciosi, Baykali Ganambarr, Sam Claflin, Damon Herriman

Genre: Drama / Thriller

Rating: R

  

‘The Nightingale’ is a revenge film set in early 19th century Tasmania from the director of ‘The Babadook’. While not technically a horror film, there’s certainly some horrific moments – rape, lynching and murder. Unfortunately, it’s probably pretty realistic for Tasmania in the 1820s. Clare (Franciosi) is an Irish convict under the rule of the English Lieutenant Hawkins (Claflin) and married to newly-free Aidan (Sheasby). It’s not really a spoiler to say that Hawkins and Ruse (Herriman) murder Aidan, leave Clare for dead and set off north to Launceston, setting in motion her trek for revenge.

While Clare’s totally unprepared for the Tasmanain wilderness, she manages to enlist Aboriginal tracker Billy/Black Bird (Ganambarr), who ends up being the star of the film. He brings compassion and justified anger, but also humour and warmth. It helps that his Black Bird can sing along with Clare’s “Nightingale” song(s), some sung in Gaelic. It’s nice to see them bond over both being subjugated by the English. Much like 2009’s ‘Van Diemen’s Land’ (which I probably slightly preferred over this), the Tasmanian bush is a key character, with so many stunning forest, beach, mountain and valley vistas. You should make sure you visit Tasmania if you’ve never been!

The acting is great, with the villains callous, Clare obsessively determined and Billy trying to find his place in his disrupted world. It’s probably 30min too long and has lots of slow moments that don’t add too much, and lots of people will have an issue with some of the violence. The film really hits home what English colonisation did to Indigenous Australians and particularly it’s compounded effect on Tasmania. There’s a truly touching scene near the end with an old English man helping Billy and Clare – but it highlights the exception to the rule.

Overall: Brutal, single-minded early Australian revenge story.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.