Night Always Comes

There was absolutely no value to this film than showcasing a terrible family dynamic and disastrous flow of events. Disappointing to see Vanessa Kirby who is so full of potential reduce herself and waste her talents in this film.

I totally appreciate this can be the life of so many in society, some even worse than what is portrayed in the film. But my question is why and what were the key messages? We see a flawed female protagonist that's made bad life choices try to save her family and 'fight' for them but not have that reciprocated. What is the emotional payoff or point? Toxic things happen to people who make bad choices? I think you need more than that to deliver that emotional depth and stronger themes. Based on a pointless novel and a poor film. Come on Netflix stop making such poor films.

It's kind of like a highlight reel of how people that have made bad decisions or have a history and are in a stressful situations and revert back to vices and or habits to make due. Not sure about the harsh criticism. The car theft scene gave me nostalgia and reminded of how Vanessa Kirby was the opposite of Ryan Gosling in Drive. If you don't go into this with super high expectations, then it's a perfectly watchable movie.

Not gonna lie, the plot progression resembles Good Time a lot more than I could anticipate, but I was also engaged the whole time, thanks to a very solid, believable showing from Vanessa Kirby. Her eyes do a lot of the talking in certain scenes, and I would never complain about the number of back shots we get of hers (..yeah, she's got a great BACK..uff!). For director Benjamin Caron, this is a slightly better effort than Sharper, more so because the events can be tied to real middle-class happenings.

I liked the conversations that the central characters keep having, showcasing sufficient detail without resorting to gimmicks like flashbacks or cutaways. Jennifer Jason Leigh, Zack Gottsagen, and Stephan James offer good support to Kirby, balancing out the plot absurdities with some level of grounded stability. I'll award this 3 stars, as this story was never meant to give you the quintessential happy ending, and it doesn't. It just concludes at a detour, and we're left to write the rest of the story ourselves. Maybe.. just maybe, it would've helped knowing Kirby's character a bit more BEFORE we jumped into the "timebound thriller" part of the plot.

6. Stars.

Something about this film is off. At times I found myself counting the minutes until it was over, and that's never a good sign. At other times it was riveting enough to capture my curiosity. On the other hand, it's so overdone a plot these days, same story I've seen so many times. It's about a woman who temporarily mis-places her sense of right and wrong, because her sole focus is on avoiding eviction and losing her Down Syndrome brother to the system.

This actress is iconic and her acting in this is good, but the movie is bad.

Her mom is a deadbeat, and wow is that actress soooooo good at playing a loser. I've seen the actress play the bum before, but this takes the cake. What little screen time the mother has, she really leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

So back to the story. Our protagonist is having a lot of difficulties making ends meet, we are shown her true colors in that she's a high class "working girl", balancing two other jobs, one at a bar and one in a factory; and even with her extraordinary good looks, she is still not able to make ends meet. And yet, as we watch her swindle her way through the night, and then spiral deeper and deeper into some really dangerous and highly illegal activities (we are talking hard-core prison time), you'd think it would be a fun ride...nevertheless, this film fundamentally fails to entertain.

Probably the one thing a filmmaker doesn't want to hear about his or her film is indifference. If you love something or hate something, that means you care about it and it incites some type of passion. If you watch something and say "meh" it is neither. If you've read a couple reviews or a logline, you know what the film is about. Similar plot to other movies you've seen, but this one looked better. The trailer looked exceptional. I love the actors, particularly Vanessa and Jennifer, and was looking forward to it. And then.....meh. There's a scene toward the end where the actresses look at each other and you can hear the director in the background saying "tell the story with your eyes," and you get long stares. At the end of the day, I didn't buy the lead's dopey decisions and none of it was realistic but there were a couple well-paced entertaining action scenes. But I didn't buy any of it. Your mileage may vary. Meh.