Not much has worked out for Lynette (Vanessa Kirby) over the course of her life. She still lives in the same shitty house on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon that she was born into. At some point, her father left and didn’t look back. Her mother Doreen (a wonderfully exasperating Jennifer Jason Leigh) is the last person anyone would think to rely on. Her older brother Kenny (“The Peanut Butter Falcon” breakout Zack Gottsagen) needs time, attention, and care, lest he be taken away again.
But when Benjamin Caron’s “Night Always Comes” begins, there’s a glimmer of hope: Lynette has managed to haggle with their slippery landlord, finally convincing him to sell their run-down house to the family for a relatively fair price. For Lynette, Kenny, and Doreen, owning their home will give them the kind of stability they’ve never had, one thing to hold on to, a single mark in their favor. It doesn’t matter that the house is a mess — and production designer Ryan Warren Smith excels at building out lived-in spaces throughout the film — all that would matter is that it is theirs.
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Based on Willy Vlautin’s novel of the same name (the author’s work has previously been adapted to the screen for films “Lean on Pete” and “The Motel Life”), it’s clear from the start that this plan isn’t going to pan out. After all, the film actually opens with a shot of a bloody, beleaguered Lynette standing in front of that damn house, not exactly looking triumphant. How she got there — and where Caron’s film takes us and her along the way — is the ultimate question of the film, even if its answers fail to surprise or stun.
While Lynette’s motivations — to protect her brother, to secure some sort of financial ballast for the family — are the sort seemingly designed to make audiences cheer for her, Sarah Conradt’s screenplay thickly layers on expository blather about her true nature and all the very bad things she did in the past. Kirby, one of our most talented performers, works hard to balance these outward motivations and the hammy implications she’s not all she seems, and while the twain eventually meet in the film’s final (and best) act, the script often lets her down.
If an audience is told enough that a character has a messy past or is prone to fits of anger, they’re going to expect to see those elements splashed out in the story. But all that telling dilutes the eventual showing, and being told repeatedly that Lynette has problems with rage takes away from Kirby’s performance in sneaky ways, being told repeatedly she did terrible things when she was younger only means we shrug when we finally learn them. Kirby is far too emotive of a performer to be bogged down by this kind of scripting, and it keeps her from fully tapping into the kind of work we all know she can deliver.
But Kirby, who also produced the film, finds places to shine. Consider the early revelation that, not only has Doreen not shown up to co-sign the home loan papers with Lynette, but that she’s also skipped out on the entire venture, and making off with the $25,000 down payment to buy herself a brand-new Mazda to boot. Even just minutes into the film, the horrific implications of what Doreen has done will rattle the audience, and Kirby channels that rage and confusion and pain into her own revelatory reaction. It’s a thrilling, jarring sequence to watch, and the kind the rest of the film should have been built on. Alas.
Doreen’s transgression inspires Lynette to do the only thing she can: in her own words, fight, but by any other measure, what she chooses to do is closer to an odyssey, one as messy and ill-fated as anything Homer (or Christopher Nolan) might have cooked up. Hellbent on securing 25 grand before 9 A.M., Lynette gathers all her wits, wiles, and past-due I.O.U.s and careens around some of the sketchiest areas of Portland to scrap together whatever she can, however she can.
It’s a compelling idea for a film, and Vlautin’s original novel includes a thrilling number of places for Kirby and Caron to explore: the dingy bar where Lynette works her second job (along with Stephan James as the unpredictable Cody), the shiny penthouse where her good friend Gloria (Julia Fox, always a bolt of lightning) is holed up when she’s not out with her married politician boyfriend, the grimy garage of a local grifter tasked with helping crack a safe for Lynette, and a secondhand store operated by Tommy (Michael Kelly), who holds the key to Lynette’s misspent youth. Filmed on location in Portland, “Night Always Comes” remains rooted in a real sense of place (and the attendant danger) even as the film itself spins out, stalls out, and runs out of steam.
Lynette (and sometimes Cody, sometimes even Kenny) find themselves in all manner of tough spots throughout the evening (on-screen reminders tick off the time at various intervals), but necessary tension often feels slack. Scenes stretch on too long, Lynette’s misbegotten plans play out in predictable fashion, and even a handful of genuinely thrilling action sequences (like Lynette’s escape from that grimy garage, told through an eye-popping oner) can’t quite keep things ticking along.
And they should tick along; after all, this is a film with a built-in expiration date, a running clock, a minimum of time to do the maximum of damage. While we know how it ends — again, bloody, beleaguered, and very tired — there’s little revelation in the way we get there. Handsomely made but tediously plotted, Kirby is more than deserving of this kind of meaty, she’s-in-every-frame role, but “Night Always Comes” sunsets long before we get there.
Grade: C+
“Night Always Comes” starts streaming on Netflix on Friday, August 15.
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