Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Justin Kurzel
Starring: Caleb Landry Jones, Judy Davis, Essie Davis, Anthony
LaPaglia
Following Snowtown and
True History of the Kelly Gang, Australian filmmaker Justin Kurzel continues to chronicle his
country's most notorious killers with Nitram, based on the story of Martin Bryant, who murdered 35 people in a 1996
mass shooting in Tasmania. Bryant had reputedly been inspired by the
recent Dunblane massacre in Scotland, and his crime saw Australia
rapidly change its gun laws.
Snowtown told the story of John Justin Bunting, a
charismatic man who convinced others in joining him to commit murders.
If that movie was a cautionary tale of one man wielding a horrifying
influence on his community, Nitram is something of the
reverse. Kurzel's latest sees a community prod a volatile man until he
snaps.
How do you hold society to account for the despicable actions of a
killer without generating sympathy for said killer? You cast
Caleb Landry Jones. Few other actors could embody Bryant,
referred to throughout as "Nitram", and generate the mix of empathy and
repulsion that Jones provokes in the viewer.
The movie opens with real life footage of a 12-year-old Bryant in the
burns ward of a hospital after being injured by fireworks. Asked by the
interviewer if he has learned his lesson, Bryant insists that he will
continue to play with fireworks. That's what we find the fictional
Nitram doing as an adult, driving his neighbours mad in the process. His
parents appear to have long given up. His docile father (Anthony LaPaglia) tiptoes around his son, cautious of his violent outbursts. His mother
(Judy Davis) pokes and prods him, almost cruelly trying to
provoke him to react.
Shunned by most in his small town community, Nitram finds a surrogate
mother/sister/friend in Helen (Essie Davis), a wealthy heiress
who lives a reclusive Norma Desmond-esque life in a crumbling mansion
surrounded by cats and dogs. Kurzel refashions the real life Helen
Harvey as a faded actress, drawing parallels to
Sunset Blvd and the '70s Australian thriller
Night Nurse (Kurzel seems to
draw inspiration from another Australian film, Michael pate's
Tim, in his depiction of Nitram and Helen). The two kindred spirits, both
objects of derision in their community, form a bond, with Nitram moving
into Helen's home. She splashes out on her male guest, buying him a car
and whatever else he wants. She draws the line at his request for a
rifle, however, as she abhors guns. Whether Nitram's subsequent actions
are on purpose or an accident are as ambiguous in the film as in real
life, but it sets him down a dark path that will result in one of
Australia's greatest tragedies.
Kurzel pulls off a difficult balancing act of never making excuses for
Nitram while also pointing the finger at the wider community that
enabled him through inaction at best and cruelty at worst. Nitram is
subjected to bullying by those willing to confront him, while everyone
else sniggers behind his back. This changes of course when he comes into
money courtesy of Helen. An early foreshadowing scene sees a car
salesman gladly take money from a woman who isn't quite in her right
mind, and this is mirrored later when a clearly deranged Nitram is
treated like a visiting sheikh by the staff of a gun store once he lays
a bag of cash on the table. It's the same bag that he will later load
with weapons.
He's only on screen for a couple of minutes, but the performance of
Rick James as the gun shop proprietor is staggeringly good. He
puts on a smiling salesman act for Nitram, but we can see behind his
eyes that he knows he's doing something wrong for the sake of making a
quick buck. It's but one of several fantastic performances here. When
Judy Davis and Essie Davis sit across from one another at a restaurant
on their first tension-filled meeting, it's like Australia's equivalent
to the famous meeting of Pacino and De Niro in Heat. Here are two titans of Antipodean acting getting the chance to stare
each other down. LaPaglia gives a heartbreaking turn as a heartbroken
father, while the various supporting actors are convincingly
uncomfortable in Nitram's presence.
A quick glance at Wikipedia will reveal that the real life story of
Bryant is even more dramatic than Kurzel's translation. Leaving out some
of the more shocking details keeps Kurzel's film grounded, and he
sensitively opts not to portray Bryant's ultimate crime. Kurzel has
pulled off the difficult task of condemning an evil man while making the
rest of us wonder if we could do more to prevent the next Martin
Bryant.
Nitram is on UK/ROI VOD now.
