Director: Benjamin Caron
Writers: Willy Vlautin, Sarah Conradt
Stars: Vanessa Kirby, Jennifer Jason-Leigh, Zach Gottsagen
Synopsis: Risking everything to secure a future for herself and her brother, Lynette sets out on a dangerous odyssey, confronting her own dark past over the course of one propulsive night.
Just a few weeks after Vanessa Kirby’s biggest film to date, Fantastic Four: First Steps, was released, another Kirby-led project quietly dropped on Netflix. Benjamin Caron’s sophomore feature, Night Always Comes, adapted from the novel of the same name, follows Lynette (Kirby) as a woman desperately trying to keep her home where she and her mother (Leigh) and her brother, Kenny (Gottsagen), who has Down Syndrome, have lived since her childhood. After her mother decides to use their down payment for the house on a new car, Lynette has one night to come up with the money by any means necessary.
Falling into one of my favorite genres, the “all-in-one night” movie, Night Always Comes doesn’t necessarily tread new terrain. Set in Portland, we get to see the city’s seedy underbelly. Lynette tries to leave that life behind, but she needs one last favor from a few folks from her past to pull off buying the house. Kirby’s performance is what makes the film worth seeing. Her on-screen command is nothing short of brilliant, and she elevates the script far past its merit. Early on, she channels the same tone from Pieces of a Woman and quickly shifts into a manic desperation that is intoxicating. The material around her fails her, but she makes it a ride worth taking.
Lynette’s wild night has her run across some interesting characters. Scott (Randall Park) is her current call girl client, a wealthy man reluctant to help her in any way. Gloria (Julia Fox) is an old call girl friend who’s hit it big with a senator. Ultimately, we get to spend a bulk of the evening with Cody (Stephan James), who has some sordid connections that assist in her quest for $25k. Fox is a fun character and really shines in her scene, but James is the only one who matches Kirby’s energy and stands toe-to-toe with her on screen.
Night Always Comes has significantly more depth than your average straight-to-streaming release, using this one night as a character study into Lynette and how she got to where she is. It’s clear her mom hasn’t been much help over the years, leading Lynette to have to take the lead on making money for her family. She’s also been made responsible for Kenny, having to take him to classes with her and leaving him at a local diner while she works.
We might not all have experienced such dire situations like this, but we’ve all been set up to fail in one way or another. They say that pressure makes diamonds, but sometimes the immense pressure to not fail turns us into the darkest versions of ourselves. Lynette has self-destructed at nearly every turn in her adult life. She’s finally gotten to a place where she can make progress for herself and for her family, but she has to go back to her old ways to make it happen. Hopelessness causes one to regress, the fight or flight mentality forcing one to make decisions they know they probably shouldn’t.
Kirby communicates these internal feelings through her facial expressions, only becoming more animated as the night wears on. She adds a level of empathy that this character wouldn’t normally receive. Her performance even overcomes the incredibly heavy-handed introductory montage with radio and television clips running back to back discussing the ease in which people become homeless or choose to return to homelessness. All it takes is one minor emergency for someone to end up on the streets. It’s a harsh reality, but it’s delivered too on the nose at the start of the film.
Overall, Night Always Comes is a fine thriller that Vanessa Kirby boosts with an exceptional performance. Between this and her standout turn in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, she’s established herself as one of the strongest actresses of our time and displayed impressive range. Benjamin Caron’s direction proves to be serviceable, but nothing to write home about. This truly is a vehicle for Kirby to show off a different side and is worth watching for that alone.
