‘Night Always Comes’ Offers Grim Perspective On Poverty: At The Movies With Kasey
Categorizing a movie by genre can be challenging sometimes, especially when they blend conventions. For example, Then Monkey uses elements of horror and comedy. Night Always Comes, however is billed as a thriller and I had a hard time understanding why. The drama is about as thrilling as an anxiety attack.
On Netflix, Night Always Comes follows Lynette (Vanessa Kirby) through a perilous night as she attempts to get $25,000 for the down payment to buy the house she shares with her mother, Doreen (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and brother, Kenny (Zack Gottsagen). In pursuit of the cash, she burns seemingly every connection she has, commits crimes, and risks her life.
This movie is like the gritty, more realistic version of One of Them Days, the raucous buddy comedy that came out earlier this year, starring Keke Palmer and SZA as best friends trying to avoid eviction. Night Always Comes, however, has a deeply nihilistic tone and depicts the compounding influences of trauma and poverty on Lynette’s psyche while also showing her to be an unreliable, volatile protagonist.
The screenplay and Vanessa Kirby’s even performance establish the stakes solidly early on. Lynette’s desire to buy her childhood home so that she can protect her brother, who has Down Syndrome, should make her a sympathetic figure, especially after Doreen uses their downpayment money to buy a car instead. As the movie progresses, however, the many dubious choices Lynette makes undermine her perspective and lend credence to her mother’s view that Lynette is untrustworthy. These events, leading to a morally ambiguous ending, make the story both depressing and thought-provoking. Perhaps the film could have explored the realities of eviction and the perils faced by economically marginalized people more thoroughly if the story were not so extreme in so many ways. However, the lack of truly trustworthy protagonists lends the film an edge. Although the ending is trite, the exchange between Doreen and Lynette that precedes it features excellent performances and a perspective shift in the story that had me rethinking everything that came before, a neat narrative trick that made the film worth watching.
Night Always Comes was written by Sarah Conradt, based on the novel by Willy Vlautin, and directed by Benjamin Caron. It runs 108 minutes and is rated R.
On Hulu, Capturing Their Killer: The Girls on the High Bridge covers the mystery around the 2017 murders of Abigail Williams and Liberty German in Delphi, Indiana. The local interest drew me to the documentary, as did curiosity about the 2022 conviction of Richard Allen for the crime. Surprisingly, director Grace Miller got Allen’s wife, Kathy, to sit for an interview, and her perspective, as well as those of lawyers and online sleuths, cast doubt on the conviction while still honoring the tragedy of Abby and Libby’s deaths.
The three-part series is at its best in the first two sections as it captures the working-class community in Delphi and the grief of the girls’ family and friends. In the third part, as the documentary goes down rabbit holes and covers alternative theories, it loses momentum. Even still, the series provides a comprehensive overview of this upsetting local story.
Capturing Their Killer: The Girls on the High Bridge was directed by Grace Miller. It runs for 3 episodes on Hulu.
Also on Hulu, The Monkey is available to stream after a brief stint in theaters earlier this year. Based on a Stephen King story, the movie walks a fine line between horror and comedy as twin brothers Hal (Christian Convery/Theo James) and Petey (Colin O’Brien) struggle to contain an evil monkey doll they inherited from their long-lost father. After the death of their mother, Lois (Tatiana Maslany), the boys move in with their Aunt Ida (Sarah Levy), and life returns to normal for a time, until the monkey resurfaces and unleashes terror on the community.
The Monkey is one of the most absurd movies I have seen in a long time, full of campy effects and over-the-top violence. It is gross and ridiculous, and I am not entirely sure that I enjoyed it, but for fans of a certain kind of Stephen King story, this is a hit. Theo James delivers a dramatic, dry performance as Hal, balancing the silly story. The real star, however, is the monkey prop with its creepy grin and ominous cymbals. It’s really so stupid, but it hits on classic horror themes from the dark side of childhood to cursed inheritances, small-town gossip, and failures to escape the past. For those looking to jump-start spooky season, The Monkey is a solid place to start, as it will gross you out without giving you nightmares.
The Monkey was written and directed by Osgood Perkins, based on the short story by Stephen King. It runs 98 minutes and is rated R.
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