{"id":147028,"date":"2025-08-15T05:44:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T05:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/147028\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T05:44:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T05:44:10","slug":"vanessa-kirby-in-gritty-netflix-thriller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/147028\/","title":{"rendered":"Vanessa Kirby in Gritty Netflix Thriller"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSet over the course of a single harrowing night and driven by a performance from Vanessa Kirby<\/a> bristling with raw nervous energy, hunger and searing inner conflict, Netflix<\/a>\u2019s Night Always Comes is more compelling than the average original streaming movie even if it could use an extra shot of emotional power. Adapted from the well-received novel by Willy Vlautin, the gritty neo-noir is high on atmosphere. But it\u2019s more attentive to the protagonist\u2019s spiraling desperation than the canvas of an ever-gentrifying America\u2019s unforgiving economic climate, diluting the social context of the book.<\/p>\n

\n\tReuniting with Benjamin Caron, one of her directors on The Crown<\/a>, Kirby plays Lynette, who lives in her dilapidated childhood home in Portland with her developmentally disabled older brother Kenny (Zack Gottsagen) and their flaky mother Doreen (Jennifer Jason Leigh<\/a>), who works for a grocery store chain. Their father took off some time back.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tNight Always Comes\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tAtmospheric and well-acted if a little one-note.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRelease date<\/strong>: Friday, Aug. 15
Cast<\/strong>: Vanessa Kirby, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Zack Gottsagen, Stephan James, Randall Park, Julia Fox, Michael Kelly, Eli Roth, Sean Martini, J. Claude Deering
Director<\/strong>: Benjamin Caron
Screenwriter<\/strong>: Sarah Conradt, based on the book The Night Always Comes, by Willy Vlautin
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRated R,
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 50 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tAmid soaring housing prices, a cratering job market and escalating inflation, Lynette is trying to buy the house to give the family permanence and keep social services away from Kenny. \u201cI just want to have one win,\u201d she says, encapsulating countless stories of working-class Americans living hand-to-mouth. Their landlord, David (J. Claude Deering), has cut them a deal to buy the house, which Lynette recognizes as their best \u2014 perhaps last \u2014 chance of stability. But she needs Doreen to cover the downpayment.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt first the film, adapted from Vlautin\u2019s novel by Sarah Conradt, plays like a character study of an emotionally and physically exhausted woman, shouldering much of the responsibility for Kenny\u2019s care with unreliable backup from her selfish mother. <\/p>\n

\n\tLynette juggles three jobs \u2014 working the assembly line at a commercial bakery, serving in a bar and turning occasional tricks with well-heeled businessman Scott (Randall Park<\/a>). It gradually emerges that she has a violent past and a history of trauma from her teens, for which Doreen accepts no responsibility. Her attitude, echoed by others in the film, is that Lynette was wild in her youth, meaning she asked for whatever damage was inflicted on her.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe trigger for an all-night odyssey that switches gears into crime-thriller mode comes soon after Lynette\u2019s meeting with David to close on the house, at which her mother is a no-show. Instead, Doreen turns up a couple hours later with a new car, unapologetic about reneging on their agreement. \u201cI thought why not do something nice for myself once,\u201d she says with a shrug, seemingly indifferent to the threat of eviction they face.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter failing to convince her mother to return the car to the dealership, Lynette sets out to raise the $25,000 by the following morning at 9 a.m., David\u2019s final extension. (The plot is basically One of Them Days<\/a> without the comedy or daylight.) The time appears at intervals on the screen throughout the action, starting at 6:12 p.m.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a strong scene that points to the cold remove of the moneyed class from those living on the poverty line, Lynette meets married family man Scott at the hotel where their assignations take place. He laughs at her request for help with the money, refusing to listen to her family troubles: \u201cI pay you to have a good time, not to hear about that stuff.\u201d They move from the bar to a room anyway, after which Lynette pockets Scott\u2019s key fob and takes off in his wife\u2019s Mercedes.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt that point she\u2019s still incredulously asking herself what she\u2019s doing, but as the night wears on, any qualms Lynette has about resorting to crime steadily fade, at the risk of self-sabotage. She attempts to claim repayment on a loan to fellow escort Gloria (Julia Fox<\/a>, playing trashy self-absorption to the hilt), who\u2019s set up in a swanky apartment by her high-powered john and is unsympathetic to her problems. But a safe containing fat wads of cash and a large cocaine stash presents an opportunity.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe filmmakers never judge Lynette as her actions grow more reckless, even when she\u2019s forced to pick up Kenny and take him along on a series of dangerous encounters.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe enlists help from her ex-con bar co-worker Cody (Stephan James<\/a>); he takes her to see safecracker Drew (Sean Martini), who quickly turns menacing. Her next stop is to see Tommy (Michael Kelly<\/a>), a sleazy figure from her past who stirs up disturbing memories. From there, she heads to the home of rich, hard-partying creep Blake (Eli Roth<\/a>), where things turn ugly when he makes aggressive moves on her. As morning rolls around, there\u2019s no redemption for Lynette.<\/p>\n

\n\tCaron, who in addition to The Crown has directed episodes of Andor<\/a> and the Julianne Moore Apple TV+ movie Sharper<\/a>, steers the action along with an assured hand, making good use of talented Mexican DP Dami\u00e1n Garc\u00eda\u2019s inky location shooting and Brit composer Adam Janota Bzowski\u2019s correspondingly moody score. But a confrontation with Doreen near the end that becomes a self-reckoning for Lynette undersells the pathos. It perhaps doesn\u2019t help the emotional heft that Doreen is a character begging to be strangled.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe movie\u2019s most affecting moments are between Lynette and her brother, played with disarming cheerful innocence by Gottsagen and with alarming distress when Kenny is placed in tense situations.<\/p>\n

\n\tKirby, also one of the producers, deftly offsets Lynette\u2019s sharp edges with a haunted quality; as a vehicle for the skilled actress, Night Always Comes is certainly solid and always absorbing. But despite touching on the disparities of class, income and opportunity in America and the fragility \u2014 even futility \u2014 of hope for many people barely scraping by, the script\u2019s universal truths land with a soft impact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Set over the course of a single harrowing night and driven by a performance from Vanessa Kirby bristling…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":147029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[38638,171,32588,71578,65321,4659,83844,86846,67,132,68,56259],"class_list":{"0":"post-147028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-eli-roth","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-jennifer-jason-leigh","11":"tag-julia-fox","12":"tag-michael-kelly","13":"tag-netflix","14":"tag-randall-park","15":"tag-stephan-james","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-vanessa-kirby"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115031196603036611","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}