The Nightingale

Jennifer Kent's sophomore effort, The Nightingale, is beset with some interesting but ultimately flawed creative choices. The 1.37:1 ratio aspect choice is puzzling and defeats any effort to capture the truely spectacular wilderness in any cinematic sense. An opportunity lost to really describe what should've been another essential character in the movie. Instead there is very little in the way of establishing any sense of geography or location. The closed off framing creates a claustrophobic vibe that even applies to the exteriors. The villains are drawn so broadly as to almost descend into caricature with repeated maniacal giggling and shouting that dilutes any real menace. In fact our heroine seems to have no overt concerns as to any potential danger from said villains eg previous rape/assault attempts or threats to revoke her free woman status. So when the attack comes it feels contrived with no foreboding or dread preceding it. In fact the emphasis on showing the multiple rape scenes just dulls any significant impact the act should rightly impart on the audience. If anything this feels like an ambitious debut from a talented independent artist with a limited budget and even more limited creative toolbox. The 136 minute running time isn't justified, in fact what The Nightingale needs most is to be reduced by 30 minutes. It's languid and suffers for it. Conversely The Babadook still impresses with its tension, taught story-telling, beautifully realised characters and excellent film craft. Sadly The Nightingale could learn a few lessons from it.

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This one's for the feminist crowd. Plenty of poorly behaved soldiers raping women with screaming babies in the background. The dialogue is forced. The fight scenes poorly choreographed. I wish I could share the complete film but I turned it off at 30 minutes.

A very good movie of Australia's past history how the settlers treated the aboriginals and the convicts deported from England. Not too much is known of these happenings, but this film shows the stark realities of those days, almost two hundred years ago. The story is fictional but fits perfectly in this era and could have been true. Beautifully told and acted by the main characters giving one food for thought to ponder over. A top class dramatic movie worth seeing.

Take "True Grit," add long pointless prologue, add lot more gratuitous violence, film in 4:3 four no reason, and make several core elements utterly improbable -- and finally force in the anachronism of ham-handed current culture of outrage and being perpetually offended, and you have "the Nightingale." Or you can skip this mess and watch the much better scripted, paced, acted, filmed directed "True Grit."

Why?? Why??? Why???? This is what I was asking myself at the end of the movie. You were raped in front of your husband, your baby murdered in front of you, you are left for dead. You go on a long treacherous quest to find these men who did this and when you finally catch up to him you wimp out??!! Ok, I get it, this man put fear in you, controlled you, took everything away from you, so fear can consume you. But when you meet him again all you can do is muster up the rage and courage to hurt his feelings???!!! The ending ruined this movie that started off with such promise. So of course our heroine, that we have been following this whole time had her revenge but by the hand of her companion. Seriously?!?! This could have been a solid 10 but let's make the heroine weak and frail at the end and have the man take the spot light. We should have been following him the whole movie!! Im not anti man, I am a man but I do love a good heroine character. This was not what I was expecting. Very disappointing.