"The Nightingale"

The Nightingale, a thriller set in Colonial Australia (specifically Van Diemen's Land, present-day Tasmania), directed by Jennifer Kent (who also directed the brilliant horror film The Babadook), and starring Aisling Franciosi as Irish convict Clare Carroll, Sam Claflin as British Colonial officer Hawkins, and Baykali Ganambarr as "Billy"/Mangana, an Aboriginal tracker. When Hawkins and two of his soldiers commit an unthinkable act of brutality against Clare and her loved ones, she sets off on a dangerous journey to hunt down the soldiers and get revenge.

What I liked about the movie: the depiction of the horrors of colonialism from the perspective of Clare and Mangana, the acts of violence justified by bigotry (even Clare is quite bigoted towards Mangana for the early parts of the film), Clare's quest to get revenge having a very understandable and horrific catalyst, and the exploration of how violence can warp someone and how violence can be quite disturbing and unsettling

However: the act that kickstarts the main conflict between Clare and Hawkins is traumatic in many ways, and it is definitely not for the faint of heart; it is effective in getting the audience to care about Clare, but that unrelentingly brutal sequence of events is very difficult to watch for sure, and may even come off as a little gratuitous, same with the various scenes of sexual assault later on in that while they effectively show just how horrible the antagonists are, they can seem a little overplayed; I have a love-hate relationship with the violence depicted, as it is effective in getting the intended reaction out of the audience but some of it seems a little too much, a little unnecessary.

Despite my slight criticisms about the sometimes gratuitous depiction of violence (especially towards women) in the film, The Nightingale remains a harrowing thriller with a great pair of protagonists in Clare and Mangana, played to perfection by Franciosi and Ganambarr, an utterly loathsome villain in Hawkins, and featuring beautiful scenery and a look at the true horror of colonialism, bigotry, and sexual violence.

I highly recommend this film, even though the brutal first 20 minutes of it might make you turn away. 9/10!