NIGHT ALWAYS COMES. Since 2007, Willy Vlautin has been publishing novels about the new American West, which means he specializes in stories about life at the end of empire, lives lived in the absence of opportunity and the presence of addiction, poverty and the occasional fleeting opportunity. The books draw a taut line between Reno and Portland (both points of departure and arrival for the author himself) and take as their settings the cars and motel rooms and struggling ranches in between. Vlautin has established himself as a poet laureate of the disempowered and the dispossessed, an anachronist of the appropriate age to have observed the hollowing out and upending of the American Dream, whatever that may actually have been.
I think the author himself would be the first to admit he’s a bit of a man displaced in time, a day-laborer turned bandleader turned novelist who, at least in the early years, did much of his writing in the stands of the now defunct and demolished Portland Meadows horseracing track. He writes about jockeys and boxers and horse trainers, young people trying to make or achieve something in an unforgiving landscape foregrounding an even less forgiving culture. His prose is lean, unembellished, earnest and, as such, frequently devastating. There are glimmers of hope and suggestions of transcendence, but the narratives are predominantly told from the perspective of people for whom hope is either luxury or folly, or both. They often feel like a glimpse into the present (or even the future) from a vaguely remembered past.
Vlautin has been adapted for the screen before (The Motel Life, 2013, and Lean on Pete, 2017), though I have neglected to seek the movies out. But The Night Always Comes, his 2021 novel about the real-time dissolution of Portland as a beacon of modern progressive ideals, certainly seems like a timely and topical opportunity for a trenchant cinematic look at The State of Things, circa 2025. And it is that, to an extent, in addition to being a tightly constructed all-in-one-night saga through a city as riven by its identity crisis as any in America. The only real failing, as I see it, is that the film itself struggles to combine its impulses, attempting both a deeply specific story about a family in trouble and a broadside about macro-economics.
Lynnette (Vanessa Kirby, perhaps slightly miscast but doing her absolute damnedest) has an opportunity to buy a home. Granted, it’s the little North Portland house she and her mom Doreen (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and her brother Kenny (Zack Gottsagen) have been living in for a lifetime and it needs a lot of work. But circumstances have cohered such that Lynnette, in financial partnership with Doreen, could make it happen. This in spite of a national economic landscape wherein the odds of pulling it off are precipitously diminishing. (This we learn from a series of talk-radio call-in pull-quotes, one of the few instances of the filmmakers telling-not-showing and one of the rare moments that threatens to disrupt the immersive atmosphere of the piece). Doreen changes her mind at the last minute and spends her portion of their downpayment on a car, leaving Lynnette less than a day to try to scrape together $25k.
Already working the morning shift at a production bakery, evenings in a bar and going to school in between, Lynnette doesn’t have the time or means to quickly drum up house-buying money. And so, up against it for real, she re-establishes contact with people from a part of her life she’d rather not revisit, as well as some new unsavory characters from various corners of the socio-economic spectrum.
Adapted by Sarah Conradt and directed by Benjamin Caron, Night Always Comes is, on the one hand, a modestly budgeted, good-looking movie for adults. And by that standard, its mere existence is a great success. It is respectful of its characters and compellingly acted (doesn’t feel like anyone thinks they’re going slumming), and it moves briskly and compellingly from scene to scene and setting to setting, all of which will feel satisfyingly and uncomfortably familiar to anyone who has spent time in its city.
The movie’s only failure is in its visible effort to tease out the greater political context, which, in its execution, separates the characters and their story from the meta-commentary of which they are a part. It’s not a misguided notion; in fact, I think it’s the sort of art we need more of and in a big hurry — it’s just not as adeptly handled as I might have wanted.
I’d rather not leave it on a note of faint praise, so I’ll say that Night Always Comes gets a lot more right than it does wrong, both in terms of movie-craft and topicality. It is the sort of thing we’re not likely to find in a theater, of a given weekend, but we should seek these things out where we can. R. 108M. NETFLIX.
John J. Bennett (he/him) is a movie nerd who loves a good car chase.
NOW PLAYING
THE BAD GUYS 2. A team of Bad Girls enters the fray in this animated heist adventure. PG. 104M. BROADWAY.
THE FANTASTIC FOUR. Not sure how many reboots this makes, but if elastic Pedro Pascal can›t save the Marvel comic actioner, nothing can. PG13. 115M. BROADWAY, MINOR.
FREAKIER FRIDAY. Disney, Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis are back to age/body swapping, post-The Substance. PG. 111M. BROADWAY, MINOR.
HIGHEST 2 LOWEST. Spike Lee’s ransom thriller starring Denzel Washington as a music mogul. R. 133M. BROADWAY.
HONEY DON’T. Margaret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza and Chris Evans in a darkly comic mystery about a private investigator directed by Ethan Coen. R. 88M. BROADWAY.
JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH. Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey and Mahershala Ali join the franchise as a team in search of lifesaving dino DNA. PG13. 134M. BROADWAY.
KPOP DEMON HUNTERS. Sing-along event for the animated Netflix feature about an evil-battling girl group. PG. 95M. BROADWAY.
THE NAKED GUN. Liam Neeson goes full goofball as the heir to Leslie Nielsen›s police parody dynasty. PG13. 85M. BROADWAY, MINOR.
NE ZHA II. Animated adventure about a flaming fighter on a quest for a magical lotus. NR. 143M. BROADWAY, MINOR.
NOBODY 2. Sequel starring Bob Odenkirk as a subdued former killer beset by bad guys amid his retirement. R. 89M. BROADWAY.
PONYO (2008). Hayao Miyazaki’s animated adventure about a boy and a goldfish princess. G. 101M. BROADWAY.
RELAY. Riz Ahmed and Lily James in a thriller about whistleblowers, payoffs and corruption. R. 112M. BROADWAY.
SUPERMAN. Legit would probably be deported in 2025. Starring David Corenswet. PG13. 130M. BROADWAY.
WEAPONS. Horror-mystery set in a small town in the wake of 17 children disappearing simultaneously in the night. R. 128M. BROADWAY, MINOR.
For showtimes call: Broadway Cinema (707) 443-3456; Mill Creek Cinema 839-3456; Minor Theatre (707) 822-3456.
This article appears in ‘No Signs of Recovery’.