The Vast of Night

Call me the weird one, but this movie is trippy. Watching the story go in and out of drone photography, blackouts, black and white to color was fascinating. The director made it work, the acting was intriguing, watching the teenage girl scurry from place to place and all the charm of a trusting small town, well-it I loved it. Very unique.

My wife and I watched this on Amazon streaming via Roku. It is set in New Mexico but filmed digitally in Texas and Oklahoma.

It looks like the late 1950s, when I was a young teenager, and they mention Sputnik which was a 1957 event. The movie opens with an extended scene at night of local residents going to the school gym for a basketball game, just to set the mood of the time, and it all feels authentic.

But things get going when the teenage girl goes to her job as phone switchboard operator and her good friend, a slightly older guy, goes to his music and talk show at the tiny local radio station. Some electricity goes out, some phone calls get disconnected, some strange sounds are heard, coming from the skys, and recorded. All leading up to a strong belief that alien beings are in the sky.

The movie is interesting and very well made, considering it had a tight budget and a short shooting schedule. The dialog is mostly interesting and the main actors are very good in their roles. It all takes place at night on one day which adds to the mystique.

I can't remember the last time I watched a film as unique as 'The Vast of Night'. It's hard to think of a single film that I could fairly compare it to. And amazingly it worked. The film is enthralling to watch. Long close-up shots of characters simply talking on the phone should be unbearable to watch, but in 'The Vast of Night' I was captivated by them. This is partly down to some great acting, partly down to how well the dialogue is written, and partly because the mysterious story unfolding is mesmerising to watch.

This would not be an easy film to act in, because the actors aren't being given a lot to work with. Sure, they have some terrific dialogue to deliver, but they have to do so in a very confined scene throughout almost the entirety of the film, and with almost nothing else going on to divert the audience's attention. Sierra McCormick and Jake Horowitz absolutely nail their performances here. They deliver their lines at an incredibly fast pace, while still being very easy to listen to. These two have a big future ahead of them I suspect.

People are going to ask me about this film and I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to describe it to them. A description of this film could easily make it sound terrible, when in reality it is anything but. All I will say is make sure you see this film for yourself and form your own opinion. I highly recommend it.

I thought it was well acted and the story well told, it could have been about 30 mins longer, slightly slicker in the way 80s movies set in the 50's were made with a bit more background to the characters or a plot twist.

Nowhere near as polished or as captivating as Fire in the Sky or Close Encounters but thats not a negative.

Anyone who likes the old Twilight Zones or good old fashioned storytelling will appreciate this so that rules out anyone with a short attention span or those that prefer big explosions and stunt action type movies.

Whoever thought it was a good idea to have the main character mumble unintelligible lines past a cigarette in his mouth for the film's first 15 minutes is an idiot. I was ready to turn it off, but then read a review here that mentioned that the first 15 minutes are difficult, so I kept watching. A person could skip the first 15 minutes entirely and not lose anything except finding out that the two main characters are a DJ and the town's switchboard operator. And that there's a big basketball game that is not really related to the rest of the plot. Worth watching in a pinch, like if you just can't find anything else you feel like watching right then.