In Nathalie Biancheri’s moody debut feature, a teenage girl, Laurie (Lauren Coe), realises that thirtysomething Pete (Cosmo Jarvis) is watching her through the school gates. And instead of shying away, she decides to make friends with this total stranger, calling him out provocatively for his weird behaviour. Jarvis plays Pete, a local handyman, with an unnerving, watchful stare, but when you scratch the surface, there’s something vulnerable beneath.
Dramatic and nerve-prickling, Nocturnal flips expectations of relationship dynamics, age gaps, and the increasing discomfort of the audience. No-one is what you think at first glance. The first half is compelling, leaning mainly on an anguished, slow-burn performance from Jarvis. With his bulky frame and liquid brown eyes — not to mention a sort of inarticulate charisma that recalls Method actors of times past — he holds the entire conceit together.
Were it not for his depth of feeling, his character could be written off as a garden-variety creep. But his intentions are not what they first appear, and Laurie’s expectations — and growing affection for the older man — prove to be the undoing of their dynamic. Unfortunately, the clever turn that the narrative takes is also eventually its weakness; after its reveal, you have a less interesting film. As soon as the central ambiguity fades away, the prescriptive nature of the central relationship between Pete and Laurie means there are few places for Nocturnal’s narrative to go.