Review: One Night Only
Night Moves (Kelly Reichardt, USA, 2014, 112 min)
UW Cinematheque, Friday, September 5, 4070 Vilas Hall, 7:00pm»
Night Moves, the latest feature from independent filmmaker Kelly Reichardt (Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff) is a reasonably good minimalist eco-thriller about a team of environmental activists who want to be more pro-active by blowing up a generator-dam in Oregon. Reasonably good might not be enough to satisfy fans of Reichardt’s previous work, nor those just looking for a suspense thriller. Jesse Eisenberg’s miscasting in the lead nearly tips the film into the misfire category; his uptight body language (seen from the first shot, above, through the entire film) and curt dialogue delivery often seem out of place next to the relaxed performance styles of his co-stars, Dakota Fanning and Peter Sarsgaard, who seem more at home within Reichardt’s minimalist direction. Eisenberg consistently tries too hard, and he’s so uptight from his first shot that there is no where for his character, Josh, to go when the narrative’s suspense kicks in.
As the work to blow up the dam develops, we only have a general understanding of what has brought these three young environmentalists, Josh, Dena, and Harmon together. But for the most part this works to the films advantage, as Reichardt slowly builds tension regarding the bomb plot as well as between the characters. Josh works on a sustainable agriculture farm, while Dena (Fanning) works in an alternative health spa. Josh and Dena purchase a used sport boat (named “Night Moves”) and drive it deep into the Oregon woods to meet with Harmon (Sarsgaard) who appears to be the leader of the operation. The plan is to fill Night Moves with homemade explosives and leave it next to the dam. But Harmon does not have quite enough ammonium nitrate fertilizer to make the plan work, which upsets Josh because it means they must take a risky trip into town to acquire it. Meanwhile, Reichardt’s elliptical style suggests that a relationship has developed between Dana and Harmon, which Josh simply tries to avoid dealing with.
The first hour of the film is a tight examination of the preparation and execution of the bomb plot. Reichardt can do little wrong here as long as she follows thriller conventions, and she does deliver some palpable suspense sequences. But there’s also relatively little for the actors to do, beyond connecting those dots and fulfilling those conventions. In the last third of the film, then, the three characters have to deal with the consequences of their actions, and unfortunately they do not go much beyond genre conventions. Josh, as already mentioned, is uptight, but he was already so uptight that Eisenberg just seems to play the same note for the final third of the film. Harmon’s role is limited to cel phone advice to Josh, also limiting Sarsgaard’s ability to counter Eisenberg’s tenseness with some needed calm. And Fanning’s Dana, unfortunately, most completely upholds the genre conventions by being the “weak link,” the nervous nellie who might talk, the one who needs to be dealt with or remain a threat to the group’s freedom. Once these three pieces are in place, the palpable suspense of the bomb plot is replaced by simply waiting for genre conventions to be fulfilled.
In terms of tone, there’s also something odd about setting a thriller in the generally optimistic world of sustainable agriculture and alternative health care. One usually wants some degree of genre innovation, such as an unexpected locale or environment. But in this case, the genre requirements for a somewhat ominous environment is at odds with the tone of a farmer’s market. In one scene, Josh seems particularly nervous about the police presence and the number of people reading newspapers as he attends to his sustainable agriculture stand. A staple of the paranoid thriller, the ambiguous stare from a stranger, is fulfilled in this case by a long-haired, bearded young man with a cat on his shoulders. Maybe it’s just me, but I found this sequence unintentionally (?) funny, as the least threatening person imaginable is used to spur on Josh’s paranoia.
Simply filling in environmentalist and alternative agriculture details to meet genre expectations also leads one to question what the film is saying about environmentalism more generally, and the issue of so-called environmental terrorism. Unfortunately, I don’t think the film has anything to say on the topic. Any tension in the community is dispelled by the dismissal and rejection of the act by the leader of the alternative agriculture cooperative, and any subsequent debate has more to do with how the plot needs to go forward rather than an examination of the issues that drove the three to their action in the first place. Night Moves is a thriller set in the world of environmental activism, not environmental activism masking itself as a thriller.
In his IndieWire review, Eric Kohn suggests that with Night Moves, Reichardt works within a traditional narrative structure “without sacrificing her penchant for the slow, pensive approach that makes her work so absorbing regardless of its plot specifics.” He concludes that the film distinguishes itself from her earlier work because “Reichardt’s deliberate pace actually works in service of suspense, resulting in her most accessible movie to date.” I agree that Night Moves is likely the most accessible of Reichardt’s films. I recall watching the end of Meek’s Cutoff at the Wisconsin Film Festival, realizing that I was likely seeing what would be the last shot of the film, and anticipating that people would be upset if it were the last shot. Sure enough, the image went dark, and several people in the audience gasped or groaned. That was a unique, memorable experience. Nothing like that will happen at the UW Cinematheque screening of Night Moves this Friday, and the people who groaned at Meek’s Cutoff will probably like Night Moves much better. Night Moves is a good film, it just isn’t a very unique, memorable experience.
Be sure to check out Jake Smith’s post, “Director of the Week (9/1/14): Kelly Reichardt,” to catch up on her earlier films on DVD and streaming services.