Review / The Nightingale (2018)

The Nightingale (2018) -Directed by Jennifer Kent (*Babadook*)

Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale is a cold, hard look at colonialism, unflinching in its depiction of the brutality that empires are built upon. Set in 1825 Tasmania, it follows ClareAisling Franciosi), a young Irish convict, and Billy (Baykali Ganambarr), an Aboriginal tracker, through the wilderness as they pursue a British officer who has committed unspeakable atrocities. This is not entertainment; this is witness, testimony, a reckoning with historical crimes that we would prefer to forget. (Warning: the film itself is very difficult to sit through.)

Kent has produced an incredible piece of cinema here, one that sits alongside the great historical memory films like Schindler’s List, I’m Still Here, Parallel Mothers, and There Is No Evil that refuse to let us look away from what was done in our names or in the names of our ancestors. The brutality and violence are hard to watch, almost unbearable at moments, but they are likely historically correct and perhaps even understated. Kent doesn’t sensationalize; she documents. This historical memory needed to be unearthed, and I find her woman-perspective on this history refreshing, essential even.

The timing could not be more relevant. In our current world of Russia, USA, and China, we are watching authoritarianism resurge, watching strongmen deploy the same logics of domination and dehumanization that powered colonial expansion. I would add Netanyahu to that list of modern autocrats, though I suspect the original culprit is this same British Empire for failing to provide a place for Palestinians after World War II. The colonial mindset, the conviction that some lives matter and others are disposable, that some people are fully human and others are obstacles, this hasn’t disappeared. It has merely found new expressions, new justifications, new victims.

Aisling Franciosi and Baykali Ganambarr especially deliver amazing performances. Franciosi carries rage and grief in every frame, her Clare both victim and avenger, never allowing us the comfort of simple heroism. Ganambarr’s Billy is quietly devastating, a man navigating impossible choices in a world designed to destroy him and his people. The relationship that develops between them, born of parallel oppressions and shared trauma, becomes the film’s moral center. These are two people the British Empire considers subhuman, finding humanity in each other while surrounded by systematic inhumanity.

There is no slack in this film. I have only praise. Kent, the leads, and all the supporting cast were perfect. Sam Claflin’s British officer is terrifying precisely because he believes completely in his own superiority, in his right to take what he wants and destroy what resists. He is the empire personified, and his casual cruelty is more horrifying than any monster because men like him actually existed, actually did these things, actually built the world we inherit.

The Nightingale is an important film, perhaps a necessary one. It reminds us that historical memory is not about dwelling in the past but understanding how the past shaped the present, how colonial violence created structures of oppression that persist. People tell you exactly who they are right up front; empires do the same. We just aren’t listening. Kent makes us listen, and what we see haunts us. That is her gift as a filmmaker.

Score 10/10