Set in 19th-century Tasmania during the so-called Black War (set off by massive European immigration, forced and otherwise), the Australian writer-director\u2019s masterful and complex follow-up to <\/span>The Babadook<\/span><\/i> stars Aisling Franciosi as Clare, a young Irish prisoner sent to Australia to work as an indentured servant, and Baykali Ganambarr as Billy, an Aboriginal tracker who has witnessed the decimation of his tribe\u2019s land and way of life under colonial rule. After Clare is made to watch as her loving husband and baby daughter are murdered at the hands of the sadistic British officer, Lieutenant Hawkins (Sam Claflin, who should be commended for his commitment to going all-out vile), who repeatedly raped her and refused to grant her the freedom she\u2019d rightfully earned, she\u2019s left for dead.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When she wakes up, she\u2019s a changed woman, and she sets off into the bush to seek her revenge, enlisting Billy as her reluctant guide. Kent and cinematographer Radek Ladczuk (the man responsible for <\/span>The Babadook<\/span><\/i>\u2019s canted camera angles and gloomy, overcast feel) skillfully jump between sweeping shots of the dense, looming wilderness and then tighter shots of the humans traversing it. As Clare and Billy journey further and further into the thick, unforgiving vegetation in search of the officer and his party, these two people from very different backgrounds are drawn closer together, coming to realize the commonality of their outsider status and what they\u2019ve each had wrenched away from them because of it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Still, Kent is careful to acknowledge their difference in status in the world they inhabit \u2014 as a white woman, even though she\u2019s convicted criminal from a poor Irish family, Clare (who displays some of the same racist behaviors early on, referring to Billy as \u201cboy\u201d and ordering him around) is often afforded some dignity that Billy is denied in his own native land. When a (relatively) less brutish white man they encounter tells him to sit at the table and eat with the rest of the group rather than on the floor in the corner, his eyes well up with tears \u2014 not out of thankfulness at the man\u2019s unexpected kindness, but out of sadness and anger that native Australians have been reduced to second-class (or even third-class) status on their own soil.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019d be hard \u2014 if not impossible \u2014 to sit through all this grimness without the incredibly compelling performances by Franciosi (previously known for television roles on shows like <\/span>Game of Thrones<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>The Fall<\/span><\/i>) and Ganambarr (a Djuki Mala dancer who gives an incredible debut performance as an actor here). The pair really anchor <\/span>The Nightingale<\/span><\/i> and provide some much-needed humanity in a world that sorely lacks it, and the final scene on a beach at sunrise (the anticipated dawn after so much darkness) may be one of the most beautiful ever committed to film \u2014 although don\u2019t expect Kent to give anyone a resolutely happy ending. Following Jennifer Kent and The Nightingale deep into the heart of darkness is harrowing but also deeply rewarding \u2014 if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":568,"featured_media":12357,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381,340],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","category-movie-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/crookedc-01.svg\")
<\/a><\/span><\/p>\nGrade: A<\/span><\/h3>\n
2 hrs., 16 min.; rated R for strong violent and disturbing content including rape, language throughout, and brief sexuality<\/em><\/h5>\n
\nJoin our mailing list<\/a>! Follow us on Twitter<\/a>! Write<\/a>\u00a0for us!<\/em><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"