Longtime crime-thriller fans will recognise the distinct lineage of small-town murder mysteries established by The Killing in 2011, then sharpened by True Detective, before Mare of Easttown wrung out another exquisite study of provincial evil to round out the decade. The genre has since grown somewhat incestuous with its own conventions, but the challenge remains finding something worthwhile to say within such well-worn territory.
Apple TV’s Nocturne brings enough fresh blood, figuratively and otherwise, to make a compelling case for joining their ranks.Adapted from Lars Kepler’s bestselling Swedish crime novels The Sandman and Lazarus, the 10-episode psychological crime thriller transplants the Scandinavian authors’ nightmarish mythology from Stockholm to rural Pennsylvania. Created for television by Rowan Joffé, who also writes and executive produces, and developed and showrun by John Hlavin, the series assembles a formidable ensemble comprising Stephen Graham, Liev Schreiber, Zazie Beetz, Rory Culkin, Bill Camp, Poorna Jagannathan, Gary Carr and Chrissy Metz.The story revolves around Jurek Walter (Graham), an incarcerated serial killer whose crimes continue to haunt the town long after his imprisonment.
When Michael Frost, a young boy presumed murdered alongside his sister Felicia after their disappearance years earlier, inexplicably turns up alive, Jonah Lynn (Schreiber), the retired detective who originally put Walter away, is hauled back into the investigation. With Felicia’s whereabouts still unknown, FBI agent Saga Bauer (Beetz), Jonah’s goddaughter and surrogate daughter, joins the hunt, eventually having herself committed undercover to the very psychiatric institution housing the maniac they’re pursuing.Nocturne (English)Creator and showrunner: Rowan Joffé and John HlavinCast: Stephen Graham, Liev Schreiber, Zazie Beetz, Rory Culkin, Bill Camp, Poorna Jagannathan, Gary Carr and Chrissy MetzEpisodes: 7 of 10Runtime: 50-60 minutesStoryline: Ex-soldier and former homicide detective Jonah Lynn moves to a small town in western Pennsylvania for a quiet life, only to be targeted alongside his family by the manipulative, imprisoned serial killer Jurek WalterThe pilot makes a macabre introduction to Walter, who calmly goads the inmate in the adjoining cell into smashing his skull against the wall until he kills himself.
This is a man whose capacity for coercion clearly survives every security measure devised to contain him. Meanwhile, Michael suddenly turns up on a Pennsylvania bridge, dazed but alive.
But if Walter has been behind bars all these years, how did Michael survive, and who has been carrying out his business in the outside world? Nocturne makes an interesting departure from the conventional whodunit by dispensing with the mystery of the perpetrator and shifting the trope towards a how-did-he-do-it? mystery.The most conspicuous influence here is obviously The Silence of the Lambs.
Like Hannibal Lecter, Walter possesses an unnerving facility for identifying psychological weak spots and turning them into instruments of manipulation. His newest nurse, Karl (Culkin), proves easy to pry open, with Walter exploiting his vulnerabilities for gain.
The inspiration extends beyond the prison-cell tête-à-têtes too, with several nerve-shredding excursions into the ominous Pennsylvanian backwoods and derelict industrial spaces carrying more than a trace of climactic Clarice’s night-vision encounter with Buffalo Bill. Yet Nocturne’s sumptuous production against the setting’s convincingly lived-in bleakness, give it enough personality and ingenuity to survive these homages.
A still from ‘Nocturne’ | Photo Credit: Apple TV Much of that distinction is thanks to Graham, whose performance is an absolute knockout. Imposing in stature but almost languidly self-possessed, Walter is a gentle sort of malevolence, and Graham makes his ability to insinuate himself into other people’s vulnerabilities far more frightening than any overt display of violence, finding something deeply repellent in the minutiae (that shrill little cackle caught me way off guard).
The British actor is having an extraordinarily productive run following Adolescence, and this is another performance that deserves to be discussed at length.Culkin is an inspired choice of sparring partner, playing Karl’s insecurity and deeply ingrained saviour complex as vulnerabilities that gradually morph into a pathetic desperation for Walter’s approval. He is so eager to feel useful, so susceptible to the gratification of being needed, that he barely registers how thoroughly he is being played.
Both actors have terrific chemistry, and the intimacy of their exchanges is fascinating to witness metastasise. Schreiber is reliably good value as Jonah, even if the character doesn’t give him much to sink his teeth into beyond the familiar repertoire of grief-stricken silences and general ex-cop despondency.
There isn’t always an enormous amount for Schreiber to work with beyond his history with Walter and the chain of personal tragedies that followed the investigation, but he extracts considerable mileage from Jonah’s barely suppressed anguish.Beetz gets a considerably meatier assignment as Saga. Going undercover as a psychiatric patient to get close to Walter requires her to negotiate the distance between the composed FBI agent and the schizophrenic identity she must assume.
She finds plenty of interesting gradations in that performance, making the distinction between the two personas feel thin, but layered.The supporting ensemble is uniformly convincing, even if the material doesn’t always afford everyone comparable opportunities. Jagannathan in particular is also having a rather good year, and it’s nice to see her follow up on her stint in HBO’s Lanterns with another substantial television role.
A still from ‘Nocturne’ | Photo Credit: Apple TV With Tim Van Patten, Allen Coulter and others at the helm, Nocturne keeps its unsettling atmosphere suitably oppressive without letting the direction fall prey to more self-conscious gloom. There is little appetite for procedural detours or superfluous character squabbling; the writing has the good sense to get on with it for the most part.
The series is most accomplished at its dread-inducing mood-building, something exemplified rather literally when Jonah gives voice to his creeping paranoia: “Do you ever get the feeling as if you’re being watched?” That sense of an unseen, pervasive malignance hanging over the town culminates in a terrifying sequence involving the abduction of a former nurse from Walter’s facility, from her own home.A minor setback is perhaps the extraordinary latitude Nocturne affords its characters, which often tests the limits of suspended disbelief. Karl’s flagrant breaches of protocol in a supposedly high-security facility go unnoticed with almost comic regularity, while Saga’s glaring conflict of interest barely registers as an impediment to her involvement in the investigation.
Both are conspicuous lapses in judgement, and the series doesn’t do itself any favours by expecting us to overlook them. Still, Nocturne is otherwise remarkably lean, moving between timelines seamlessly without getting bogged down in exposition.
A few later developments stretch credulity, but they don’t really puncture the momentum; instead, they serve as groundwork for confrontations the series has been steadily building towards.What’s curious is that Apple TV withheld the final three episodes from critics, staving off any definitive assessment of Nocturne‘s ability to stick the landing, at least for now. The seventh episode delivers a major reveal (though one I had managed to anticipate a couple of episodes earlier), before closing on a tantalising cliffhanger.
Whether the remaining instalments can convert all this suspense into something genuinely exceptional remains up for debate, but there is enough here to make a strong case in Nocturne’s favour. For now, I’m feeling rather bullish about its prospects.Nocturne is currently streaming on Apple TV