The Nightingale (2018)

August 19, 2019 9:28 AM

In 1825, Claire, a 21-year-old Irish convict, chases a British soldier through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. She enlists the services of an Aboriginal tracker named Billy, who is also marked by trauma from his own violence-filled past.

This is writer/director Jennifer Kent's follow-up to The Babadook.

It is currently at 83% on Rotten Tomatoes.

posted by doctornecessiter (4 comments total)

I hadn't read anything about this before I saw it other than the brief description above, and I want to warn anyone thinking of seeing it: while I really enjoyed it and ultimately had a positive emotional reaction to it, it is really brutal. I instinctively turned my head away from the screen multiple times.

But again, I thought it was really good. The second time in a row that the lead in a Jennifer Kent movie was someone I'd never heard of but just completely blew me away.

Also, sidenote: if you've enjoyed Damon Herriman playing Charles Manson twice this month (in Once Upon a Time In Hollywood and the new season of Mindhunter), check this one out for him playing yet another completely despicable character. I didn't recognize him as the Manson guy when watching this, I thought it was some guy who looks kind of like a younger Michael Rooker.
posted by doctornecessiter at 9:43 AM on August 19, 2019 [2 favorites]

FYI: this just turned up on Hulu.
posted by doctornecessiter at 1:06 PM on November 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

Um. Yes, brutal is the correct word with a plausible call for a CW regarding rapes. And honestly, more. That said, the film was interesting, well constructed and honestly a new take on the Western, you know, the cowboy-hat Western. No cowboy hats here, though. If you are ready for some emotionally appalling cinema, this is not only that. It is not 100% successful in the anti-imperialist narrative it is reaching for, but it seems heartfelt, and it really commits to recentering a Western narrative on disenfranchised people, and on undermining and attacking the whole Western-film narrative of settlement and civilization, of rough men making a land safe for capital.
posted by mwhybark at 12:18 AM on January 21, 2020 [2 favorites]

Also I gather the lead actress, Aisling Franciosi, portrayed Lyanna Stark on GoT.
posted by mwhybark at 12:23 AM on January 21, 2020