Brothers Josh and Benny Safdie garnered a lot of attention with Good Time (which, contrary to popular belief, wasn’t their directorial debut; Daddy Longlegs was). It told the story of Connie and Nick Nikas, who robbed a bank and tried to go on the run. Nick was arrested and sent to Rikers, causing Connie to panic because he knew that either the inmates or his developmental disability would get the better of his brother and he wouldn’t survive the ordeal. While he was trying to secure the bail bond with the money that wasn’t stained by the dye pack, Nick was hospitalized, which prompted Connie to break him out of the hospital. Since he was looking for a bandaged guy, he accidentally “rescued” a guy called Ray. He should have put Ray back in the hospital immediately, but the promise of getting a share of his stolen money motivated Connie to go on a wild ride through New York City. That movie came out in 2017; it had a British actor playing an American whose brother had some form of cognitive impairment; the plot to secure a large sum of money took place over the course of one night; and it had Jennifer Jason Leigh in the cast. Now, I am going to talk about the feature film adaptation of Willy Vlautin’s 2021 (please, make a note of that date) novel, Night Always Comes.
Benjamin Caron’s Night Always Comes, written by Sarah Conradt, tells the story of Lynette. She is drowning in student debt. Due to inflation, she is about to lose the house she is living in with her mother, Doreen, and her brother, Kenny, who has a developmental disability. And, to make matters worse, Doreen has splurged the money meant for the down payment on a new Mazda car. David, the landlord, gives Lynette 24 hours to get the money she needs to secure the housing loan or bid goodbye to her home and Kenny as well—because Social Services will take Kenny away if Lynette doesn’t have a permanent residence. So, she embarks on a night-long odyssey through the cityscape of Portland to secure the money. She steals, she runs into shady individuals, and as the sun begins to rise, she realizes that everything that she is doing will probably amount to nothing. Lynette is played by Vanessa Kirby, a British actress. The cast not only has Jennifer Jason Leigh in it but also another actor who has worked with the Safdie Brothers, Julia Fox. Lynette’s brother has a cognitive impairment. Money, drugs, sex, and a stolen car are involved. I’m not claiming that Good Time is the chicken and Vlautin’s novel is the egg, but I’m not not claiming that either.
In addition to the derivative nature of Night Always Comes, I found the issues that it attempted to address a tad undercooked. The topics themselves—starting from student loans, inflation, rent, sexual exploitation, and the lack of class solidarity due to capitalism—feel relevant; there’s no doubt about that. But I think that they have been tackled way better in other projects, e.g., Parasite. Here, the exploration of poverty, the desperation that arises from it, and how a general decline in empathy is leading to so many man-made horrors is very surface-level largely because the characters seem like they are just going through the motions. The conversations about the predicaments that they are facing feel superficial instead of offering us a peek into how their souls are being corroded due to the times they are living in. The narrative has all the elements to get you emotionally invested in the journey of the protagonist, but there’s nothing to truly stir you. Yes, you can say that that’s the case because I, as a viewer, have become too desensitized and hence, can’t relate to Lynette’s plight. However, as someone who got emotional over a pregnant Vanessa Kirby being chased around by a silver alien on a surfboard, I don’t think my ability to be compassionate is what’s questionable in this scenario.
While I can’t prove that Night Always Comes has taken inspiration from Good Time in terms of the narrative, I will go out on a limb and say that Benjamin Caron has tried his best to replicate the relentless and tense atmosphere of Good Time (and failed). I won’t spoil the Safdie Brothers movie in case you haven’t watched it, but there’s a moment in the film where the anxiety levels reach such highs that I actually wanted to puke. It didn’t involve any gore. There wasn’t anything gross that was happening on the screen. It was pure, unbridled stress that seeped through the screen, entered my body, and made me feel unwell. Caron’s film has a scene where Lynette literally pukes after a gnarly altercation with a thug, followed by a decent escape sequence, but it’s not impactful at all. Technically, when Lynette pukes her guts out, I’m supposed to have a similar, visceral reaction, but it just doesn’t happen. And, more than the writing, I think that that’s the movie’s biggest flaw. If you are doing a film that takes place over the course of one night and you can’t generate one ounce of tension, then what’s even the point of this whole exercise? Caron does a decent job of establishing what mundanity in Lynette’s life looks like. However, when he has to contrast it with chaos, he plays it way too safe for reasons that are beyond me.
Coming to the performances, it’s actually Stephan James who stands out the most. Jennifer Jason Leigh, despite her limited screen time, nails her character’s annoying nature. The same can be said about Randall Park. Zack Gottsagen doesn’t get enough screen time, even though he is the beating heart of the film. Surprisingly enough, it’s Vanessa Kirby who is the weakest link in this chain. The most glaring problem is her accent; it’s like she isn’t even trying to not sound British. I don’t think her look is solely her fault—because there are makeup artists and costume designers involved—but she always looks too posh to be a citizen of Portland of all places. I mean, just look at what Robert Pattinson did to become Connie. If Kirby and the people associated with the film had emulated even a fraction of that commitment to the craft, I would have rated this positively, I swear. Right now, I can’t recommend giving Night Always Comes a watch. If it’s not clear already, you should definitely check out Good Time. After that, if you are in the mood for more movies where the central character goes on a downward spiral over the course of a night, allow me to point you in the direction of After Hours, Locke, Victoria, and Collateral. You can thank me later.
