Night Moves Review

If a ‘non-Hollywood’ type movie is what you’ve been craving lately, then Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves may well be the one for you next time you head to the cinema.

A study in the understated, Night Moves tells a story without action, crafts characters with minimal dialogue, and builds ever-increasing tension with silence and suggestion.

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Peter Sarsgaard and Dakota Fanning as three environmental activists who blow up a dam in the Oregon back country. The film is less a typical feature with a beginning, middle and end, and more of a snapshot, or taste of an ongoing narrative.

night moves review

In a movie-going culture where big explosions and overwrought emotion are the norm, Night Moves offers almost the exact opposite: simmering tension, stretches of silence so long as to almost make the viewer uncomfortable, and a lack of glitzy sets, props or makeup to tell its story. Nor does it need it.

Eisenberg is mesmerising as the inherently menacing Josh, who can silence female co-conspirator Dena (Fanning), with a mere hint of a frown or a curt gesture. Sarsgaard as the ex-Marine and explosives expert, who provides the expertise to blow up the dam, is barely-contained PTSD-breakdown material.

The tensions between the trio are a constant, both in the lead up to their exploits and in the splintered aftermath. You’re never sure who might just lose their nerve and do something risky, or just downright unhinged.

Night Moves is a film where you are constantly on edge, waiting for the ‘bang’. Not knowing if or when it may come is all a part of the experience of this slow-burn, riveting watch.

Night Moves is out in Cinemas now

Reviewed by Natalie Ridler

3.5 stars small

 

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