Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		5.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Nil by Mouth Blu-ray Movie Review

"Nil by mouth... it means nothin' to eat."

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown December 16, 2023

Gary Oldman's 1997 semi-autobiographical directorial debut (to date his lone directorial effort) is a stunning, punishing feature masterfully designed to beat you into submission, stripping away the safety of fictional violence as seen in the comfort of a theater and replacing it with an all too real, too brutal, too unflinching look at flawed, traumatized people in a flawed, traumatizing world. It's both overwhelming and compelling, terrifying and exhilarating, disquieting and poignant; it's a dark, haunting fever dream that offers no haven, no escape, to its characters or its viewers. And much like Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, Gaspar Noé's Irreversible and other devastating glimpses into the grimy alleyways of modern life, Nil by Mouth isn't interested in entertainment, likeable characters or happy endings. Instead, Oldman crafts a dystopia lurking within our own society; a bleak street-next-door amorality tale that rarely attempts to empathize or explain, positing pain and abuse (both generational and systemic) are the only true evils in a world beset by despair and suffering, punctuated by the briefest of moments, dysfunctional as they may be, of brilliant warmth and human connection.

Set in the same south-east London streets where he grew up, drawing upon his own experience with a violent family home, and dedicated to his father in the film's credits, Oldman’s debut as a writer-director captures a particular corner of London life -- one marked by petty crime, drug use, domestic abuse and hair-trigger violence -- with an unflinching authenticity rarely seen in British cinema. Oldman draws stunning performances from his cast, in particular from Ray Winstone, as the rage-filled patriarch Ray, and Kathy Burke, as his wife Val, who yearns for more from life than a cycle of abuse and low expectations. Shot with a visceral, up-close intimacy, the film has been remastered in 4K from the original camera negative and its impact remains every bit as searing today. 'Nil by Mouth' features cinematography by Ron Fortunato and music by Eric Clapton, and co-stars Charlie Creed-Miles, Laila Morse, Chrissie Cotterill, Jamie Foreman, Jon Morrison and Steve Sweeney.

Oldman never steps in front of the camera, allowing his intensely personal story to be told by like-minded (and I suspect similarly hardened) actors cast perfectly for the uncompromising task before them. As an ensemble, the idea of actor, star, celebrity melts away, leaving behind a family, torn to shreds by life, circumstance and, worse, one another. Nil by Mouth explores ideas of class and culture, poverty and wealth, criminality and justice, but does so without judgement, and even offers forgiveness with an understanding at some level that each of the people on screen, even the most vile and vicious, have been made that way by offenders that have come before them. This endless cycle of abuse is given no solution or remedy, nor is it positioned as something that can ever be overcome. Money, sobriety, equality, freedom; qualities we strive for but qualities that grant no guarantee of safety or absolution.

Oldman's bitter British streets might as well be war-torn Sudan. The faces are different, the climate cold, the buildings made of brick. But the weapons of war and those carrying them -- along with the children caught amidst the toil and heartache -- are too much like the warlords and rebels of other countries who carry machine guns and inflict vile acts against their own. Violence is violence. Violence begets violence. And violence is ugly, no matter where it rears its head. It stains Ray and Val as much as any other victim of neglect and desperation the world over. The hungry will always fight for food. If they're fed, they'll still be poor. And the poor will always fight to be richer. If they can't, some of them will turn to vices; crime and drugs. And even if they're given all the money they need, they'll still be damaged goods from a past filled with brutality and selfishness. On and on and on it goes. It's hard, so hard, to break such cycles. Nil by Mouth is merely a look at the oldest cycle's modern south-east London incarnation.

"When you go out, ya go out with your mates, and when you're in, you're pissed out and your brain's asleep in front of the f---ing television. I turn the television off, go up to bed, you follow me up at three o'clock in the morning stinking of booze. That's what I get. Either that or you're knocking me about. I'm thirty today, ya know, and I feel so f---ing old. Ya know, I'm tired, you know? I wanna be able to look back and say, 'yeah, I had a bit of fun,' you know, when I'm old, instead of saying 'everyone f---ing felt sorry for me!" I mean, that's the life I've got. Do you hear what I'm saying? I just don't want it. I'll... I'll find somebody else. You know, someone who can love me. Someone kind..."

Nil by Mouth Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Minted from a newly created, director-approved 4K master, Sony's 1080p/AVC-encoded video presentation is nothing short of stunning. Don't get me wrong: Nil by Mouth will probably never be the go-to film you think of when rattling off Blu-ray releases with perfect transfers. And yet this is as exceptional as it could ever be. Heavy 16mm grain assaults the image by design, creating an at-times overwhelming sense of unease and disruption. It's captured in striking clarity and consistency, as is the fine detail battling to be loved beneath it. You might assume that such aggressive grain would interfere with the crispness of textures and the refinement of the image's edge definition, or simply the artistic and cinematographic integrity of the image. But you'd be wrong. Take some time to peruse the screenshots accompanying this review. Hard. Rough. Grainy. But beautiful, filmic and revealing; exactly as they were intended to look when Oldman and director of photography Ron Fortunato set out to shoot Nil by Mouth. It all suits the themes and tone of the film wonderfully, as does the stark, strongly contrasted hues and deep blacks of the film's palette. Flesh tones remain relatively lifelike in the blaring lights and absorbing shadows of south-east London, and more domineering swaths of color -- the grays, blues and yellows that hang like burdens over Ray, Val and their family -- are striking in their richness and saturation. I was completely taken with BFI's remastering efforts and Sony's domestic transfer (which appears to be the same transfer featured on the Region B-locked Limited Edition release available overseas).

Nil by Mouth Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Sony's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track follows suit. Though not as viscerally remarkable as its video transfer, and while rather front-heavy on occasion, Nil by Mouth's lossless experience is all at once engaging, effective and absorbing. Voices have a more in-the-room quality tonally, creating a more convincing aural feeling of "being there". Prioritization isn't traditionally exacting as a result, since realism is meant to trump vocal fidelity. Even so, you won't have trouble hearing any dialogue clearly, although some of you (ahem, us) will need to turn on subtitles to follow every word when thick accents and angry ranting merge into one semi-incoherent string of slang. LFE output flexes its muscle when needed, and rear speaker activity embraces the organic sounds of the London streets, backing everything from traffic to crowd noise to increase the illusion of a living, breathing city.

Nil by Mouth Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

While the Region-B locked 2-disc Limited Edition Blu-ray release of Nil by Mouth includes a bevy of extras -- a newly recorded audio commentary with director Gary Oldman and producer Douglas Urbanski, over two hours of solo interviews with key members of the cast and crew, two short films (one from Oldman about his mother), deleted scenes, a photo gallery, a 25th anniversary trailer and an 80-page booklet with essays, interviews and storyboards -- the single-disc domestic Sony release only includes a trailer. Quite a disappointment, especially since the UK edition is region locked and will only be helpful to people with a region free player.

Nil by Mouth Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Nil by Mouth is an incredibly powerful, wholly affecting drama and easily one of the best films of 1997, if not the decade. It won't be one you return to again and again -- it's too uncompromising and overwhelming (think Requiem for a Dream or Irreversible) -- but it is an amazing film that belongs in your collection. If you don't have a region free player, Sony's Blu-ray release is a must-have thanks to an excellent AV presentation. It doesn't have any extras, though, so if you have a region free player, be sure to order the 2-disc Limited Edition UK release, as it's packed with supplemental content. Either way, the film warrants a purchase. Highly recommended.