Nitram

This Australian thriller is based authentically on actual events associated with the Port Arthur gun massacre that took place in Tasmania on 28 April 1996, when a young man, Martin (Nitram spelt backwards), shot and killed 35 people, and wounded 23 others. The film is directed by Justin Kurzel (the Director of The Snowtown Murders, 2011) from a screenplay written by Shaun Grant. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in July 2021, where Caleb Landry Jones won its Best Actor award for his role as Martin, who is now serving 35 life-sentences, without parole, for his crime. The Port Arthur Massacre is Australia’s most deadly, single-gunman shooting.

The film is a dramatic adaptation of tragic events. It is not a particularly violent or sensational film, and the movie never refers to the killer’s full name, as this review doesn’t. It is respectful of the dignity of the victims, and does not show the details of the massacre itself, but chooses instead to concentrate on the isolation, reclusiveness, and growing pathology of Martin as his anger and frustration explode to a tragic end. The film masterly builds tension as the tragedy of the impending massacre looms large. Appealing to Martin’s bullied and friendless history, it offers an insightful understanding of his odd behaviour, while not giving any endorsement of his criminal actions, and it reveals the gravity of his mental illness, without dwelling on horrific events.

The intensity of Nitram is captured superbly by American actor, Caleb Landry Jones, who richly deserves his Cannes acting award. He nails Martin’s emotional fragility, his strange thoughts and behaviour, and he captures the aimlessness of an alienated youth’s everyday existence, which clinically portends the tragedy that took place. Caleb Jones builds up a picture of a violent, unpleasant individual, who is chillingly out of control. His mother (Judy Davis) has given up on him through emotional exhaustion – she wants to love him, but can’t, and his protective father (Anthony LaPaglia) has lost his strength to cope. There seems nothing in Martin’s environment that exists to steer him towards normality. One person, who might have helped – is a wealthy eccentric heiress, named Helen (Essie Davis), who befriends Martin, but her attachment to him confuses Martin’s mother, who is concerned about the nature of the relationship that her son is forming. Helen dies in a car crash that Martin may have caused; his father suicides; and Martin inherits Helen’s wealth, that helps him purchase the high-powered hunting rifles which he used in the massacre. Judy Davis, Anthony LaPaglia, and Esse Davis are all excellent in their roles.

Justin Kurzel’s direction of this film is outstanding. Incredible power builds up as the film focuses on the obsessive intent of Martin slowly arranging his life to gun down people who have no idea what is about to happen to them. The movie finishes before Martin actually starts shooting at Port Arthur, but Jones’ acting makes Martin’s break with reality perfectly clear. The film hauntingly raises major ethical questions: could the tragedy of Port Arthur have been avoided? Could the mental illness that persecuted Martin have been alleviated? Is the national mourning that resulted from the massacre able to facilitate the changes urgently needed in the treatment of juvenile anger, social exclusion, access to firearms, and juvenile neglect? And what sustains people in families where alienated persons feel trapped by dysfunctional patterns of caring.

This is an immensely powerful anti-gun movie about mental aberration that is emotionally unnerving. The concluding credits tell us, in silence, that more guns are owned now in Australia than existed at the time of the Port Arthur massacre. The film delivers a psychological shock which is hard to shake, and Caleb Jones’s character-portrayal of Martin lies brilliantly at its core.