Based on the PJ Curtis novel, A Nightingale Falling is set in Ireland during the War of Independence and follows two sisters whose lives change forever after they find a wounded solider on their farm. Nursing him back from near death, May and Tilly find themselves falling for his good looks and in fear of his execution and maybe their own, they keep him hidden, like a glorified prisoner, from the Black&Tans.
Visually, A Nightingale Falling is far removed from its low budget roots. With beautiful composition and a rather fantastic use of natural light, this movie looks like a million dollars. Combined with some great costume design and incredibly authentic sets and props, it is really a a sight to behold. Unfortunately, that’s about as good as it gets for A Nightingale Falling, save a solid performance from Tara Breathnach. Without Breathnach, this would be a movie that would fall apart. With few exceptions, the other cast leave alot to be desired, delivering woeful and at times, hammy performances. Muireann Bird, whilst looking like a young Nicole Kidman, hams up the opening twenty minutes to no end. Adopting a similar tone that your mother would have on the phone, she is contrived, false and really is a distraction. Her constant eyebrow raising and line delivery is embarrassing. While the dialogue is absolutely woeful in places she still fails to deliver lines convincingly. Thankfully, Tara Breathnach, as mentioned, keeps things together. She is thoroughly convincing throughout, and while she seems a bit reserved at times (she really could do with having a bit more passion here) her performance is really watchable. Other than Andy Kellegher and Elliot Moriarty, the rest of the cast come off like they are in a school play. The postman, featured in the final few minutes, is so bad, he’s almost good.
One of the biggest problems the movie faces is in it’s dialogue. From time to time, it’s fine, but on many occasions, it comes off completely unnatural and pretentious. For example, when asked where are her parents, May replies “They’re deceased”. Unless you’re in the medical profession, nobody speaks like that, especially in 1920s Ireland. There’s countless scenes where the dialogue is a nothing but a distraction, even some of the labourers speak like they’re from a Shakespearian drama.
One of the other problems that exists here is the pacing. At times, it’s painstakingly slow with scenes seemingly taking forever to play out. And while that may be suitable for some audiences, the sporadic editing that goes on throughout creates a bizarre viewing experience for everybody. At times, scenes are cut within seconds, with no sense nor reasoning behind such rapid cuts. This rapid fire editing, while not prevalent throughout, happens often enough to be yet another distraction. As a result, the movie struggles to flow from one scene to another.
Tragically, A Nightingale Falling is full of distractions for the audience and the biggest distraction of all is the actual score. It’s not a bad score, it’s probably the best score to ever feature in a low budget movie, but it plays constantly. At least it seems like it does. I’d be hard pushed to remember a moment of silence throughout. Even farmyard chickens get their own piece of music.
This is easily one of the best looking low budget Irish movies of all time. It really is stunning to look at in places. Ken Loach would be proud. Whilst there probably is a good movie in here somewhere, it’s too full of distractions to provide any kind of entertainment.
