Nocturne (2020)

Director: Zu Quirke

Writer: Zu Quirke

Cast: Sydney Sweeney, Madison Iseman, Jacques Colimon, Ivan Shaw

Storytelling is a cyclical form of art. Each one we think we’re hearing for the first time is merely a version of one that’s already been told with modified characters, settings, and plot devices. I’ve said it before—the thing that sets stories apart isn’t the story themselves, but how they are told. Works like The Devil’s Advocate and Spawn have familiar roots in the story of Faust, but the idea of selling one’s soul for something desired was told around two centuries earlier, in Why the Devil Plays the Fiddle. The latter was the central theme of the new Blumhouse movie, Nocturne.

When talented pianist Juliet (Sydney Sweeney) watches her twin sister, Vivian (Madison Iseman), excel passed her in the same craft, her determination to become better goes from intense to dangerous after finding a mysterious book that belonged to a recently departed student at their performing arts high school. What’s in the book sends Juliet down a path to madness after trading everything she is for a chance to surpass her sister.

I went into this mostly blind (which is how I prefer to watch movies) and thought, from the little bit I gathered, that this was a ghost story. The cold open, in which the aforementioned departed student commits suicide after carving some odd symbols on the wall of her room and flawlessly playing the violin, felt very much like the origin of a ghost story, but I was pleasantly surprised to not see any ghosts at all. Instead, we get a story of obsession, jealousy, and rage. After Juliet finds the dead student’s notebook (the student’s name is Moira, by the way, played by Ji Eun Hwang) she begins to spiral into a rageful madness, having essentially sold her soul in exchange for taking her sister’s place as a soloist in the upcoming concerto, and she takes it by any means necessary, even at the expense of her own sister’s safety. This is a slow burn that keeps us close to Juliet throughout her entire ordeal, almost making us go down with her. There are barely any scenes without her featured, so it’s all from her perspective. What she sees and feels, we do too. This really is a story that targets our own sense of self-worth, a point driven by the multitude of shots of Juliet mirrored on various reflective surfaces, giving it a sense of dread that can haunt those who can relate to Juliet in the slightest.

Toward the climax of the film, the story of Why the Devil Plays the Fiddle is told. At first, it felt a bit on-the-nose in terms of revealing the moral of the story and the tale on which it was based. Then I thought about it for a while, and it actually was a good move. While on one hand, I could see how pretentiously it could come off, especially when the movie features quite pretentious characters to begin with, nearly giving a vibe of condescension toward its audience that they think may not know of the story they’re trying to tell. On the other hand (after all the thinking I did), I didn’t mind the scene at all. The pretentiousness works coming from the character that delivered the story, and it did set me straight, as I was thinking of it as purely Faustian. Yes, they’re essentially the same story, but as I said, they’re set apart by how they’re told. Faust didn’t revolve around music as the other story does, making it a much more appropriate parallel. This movie is filled with lessons such as that and classical music. We’re educated, entertained, and discomforted all at once.

Nocturne delivers some interesting themes throughout, including sibling rivalry, the pressure that some activities have on young people, and even the incredibly uncomfortable theme of teacher-student relationships, which it probably could’ve gone without. The other themes did come off a little like a TV teen drama at times. While the story did a lot to feed our minds, it didn’t have to try to balance it with the somewhat cheap bitterness of 17(ish)-year-olds who are clearly more mature than they acted in some scenes. It did cram a lot into an hour and a half, but overall, it worked.

Nocturne starts at a pianissimo and ends at a fortissimo via an effective crescendo, a piece that, between menacing chords, has relatable and melancholy movements that really keep you engaged with Juliet through her journey, not unlike the part of Saint-Saëns she was due to play, and it has the haunting performance by Sydney Sweeney to thank for that. Whether you see it as Faust or Why the Devil Play the Fiddle, it’s a good example of a retelling that can stand out on its own.

Nocturne is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.