Atom User Reviews for The Nightingale
Metacritic
Early scenes are unnecessarily horrific, and the final scenes falter from a disconcerting shift in tone. But this still leaves a significant stretch of beautiful acting, thoroughly engaging action and vital history lessons about the brutality on which some supposedly civil societies were built.
When violence does befall Clare and her family, it is far more devastating than anything she could possibly have imagined. It’s also as shocking and difficult to watch as any I have seen in a lifetime of watching violent movies.
There’s a tragic, moving resonance to the film’s vision of two marginalized characters—one Black, the other a woman, both stripped of everything—finding common ground in their parallel trauma and resistance. It’s there in the scenes between Franciosi and first-time actor Ganambarr, forging empathy and a mutual respect in the fire of survival, without a hint of bathetic sentimentality.