Night Always Comes Review: The Journey to the Dark Side of Portland

Night Always Comes; it is a dark and desperate neo-noir, set in Portland and directed by Benjamin Caron. Vanessa Kirby, also a producer, plays Lynette, a woman who has a single night to change the fate of her family. Based on the novel by Willy Vlautin, the film follows the desperate race of an exhausted protagonist in a gentrified and indifferent America. But suppose the atmosphere is powerful and the tension palpable. In that case, the narrative stumbles at the moment when it tries to blend thriller, social criticism, and psychological drama, without managing to give full depth to each component. The seventh art taught us, expressing things in all possible and imaginable genres, that anything can happen overnight. Gang members can be falsely accused of murder and forced to reach their base in Coney Island, starting from the Bronx, to save themselves while being hunted by the other gangs of the Big Apple (The Warriors of the Night). A former US Army special forces soldier who is about to be imprisoned for theft finds himself sent to the island of Manhattan, which has become an open-air prison separate from the rest of the metropolis, to recover the President of the United States of America, kidnapped by criminals after Air Force One was hijacked (1997: Escape from New York).

An averagely depressed aerospace engineer may accidentally come across a gorgeous woman who says she is being chased by four malicious Iranians (All in one night). Young queercore band bassist Nick O’Leary, recently dumped by his girlfriend, may end up falling in love with a girl named Nora after a night of music and walking through New York (Nick & Nora). In short, when it comes to films, night brings more unexpected adventures than calm advice. This is also what happens to the character played by Vanessa Kirby in the film, due out on August 15th on Netflix, entitled Night Always Comes. It’s a shame that the problematic parent, a slave to addictions, buys a new car with that money, regardless of the consequences and the sacrifices made by the resolute daughter, who now finds himself having to raise that considerable sum in a very short period. In Night Always Comes, a very explanatory title of the frenetic urban odyssey that she will have to face tooth and nail, the combative Lynette will find herself having to deal with her conscience and will decide not to don’t have any scruples, of course, in an attempt to achieve that impossible goal at any cost.

Night Always Comes Review: The Story Plot

The film, directed by Benjamin Caron and starring Vanessa Kirby, is based on Willy Vlautin’s bestseller “Night Always Comes“. From which he distances himself from the point of view of the period taken to narrate Lynette’s story, set in a Porland which, like all large US cities, sees an ever-increasing distance between that small portion of wealthy people who do not have particular problems in easily supporting the dear life and those who, instead, struggle to make ends meet. Throughout one night, Lynette does everything she can to secure ownership of the house where she lives with her mother and her older brother (who has Down syndrome). In a handful of hours, the woman will have to deal with a lot of the money she lacks and needs to secure ownership of the house, 25.000 dollars, which with its a turbulent past. All this in the novel at the base happens in two days and two nights, in the feature film, for obvious needs of synthesis and spectacularization, it takes place in one night.

Yes because the plot of Night Always Comes is as concise as it is effective: Lynette (Vanessa Kirby, who proves to be a much hotter actress than you mistakenly think) has a handful of hours to pay the deposit to purchase the house – or lower the eviction trap – where he lives with his mother Doreen (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and with Kenny (Zack Gottsagen, who we finally find again later Peanut Butter Falcon), the brother with Down syndrome. The money, twenty-five thousand dollars, would have even been there if Doreen hadn’t spent it on buying a car. Lynette, who tries to get busy with small jobs and some sexual services, has a night ahead of her to find the requested amount, entering Portland on the verge of an explosion.

From the first shots, it is clear that the film and the story revolve almost exclusively around the interpretation of Vanessa Kirby. The novella Invisible Woman – read more here’s our review of The Fantastic Four: First Steps – sheathing a performance that is nothing short of gigantic, with the camera consciously never moving away from her, making her alpha and omega of an uncomfortable narrative, and, it must be said, not always homogeneous. All-encompassing role for a breathless immersion in a contemporary drama, which one would like to mirror an America out of control, with the life of the suburbs and the phenomenon of gentrification testifying – as if it were still needed – how the so-called “American dream” is a reality for the few and that it is often the nightmare to overwhelm dreams of a better life.

Night Always Comes Review and Analysis

After the enjoyable (but very forgettable) Sharper, which arrived in February 2023 streaming on Apple TV+, Benjamin Caron returns to direct a feature film always aimed at streaming, Night Always Comes. Caron is primarily known for being a television director – he directed episodes of the first season of Andor, The Crown, Sherlock, and Wallander – a habitat where he seems decidedly more at ease than with films and their different methods and timing of narration. The night always arrives is a mix of didacticism and an overaccumulation of tragedies that should both be useful for understanding and getting into the head, in the mindset of the protagonist Lynette, and for grasping what her past was, but ends up leaving the viewer shocked. It all starts with the inevitable news-based tirade that can be heard in the background while the first images of the film and of an increasingly derelict Portland populated with homeless people like all US metropolises scroll by. How impossible it has now become to make a living because once you filled shopping bags with a hundred dollars, you buy two things today, rents are unsustainable, and mortgages too, because the cost of everything has risen except that of people’s salaries.

All true, sacrosanct, and perfectly understandable even by those who live in Borgo Panigale and not only in the United States, because it is an urbi et orbi problem. However, there is a way and way to immerse the viewer in a given context, and that of Night Always Comes is exemplary in terms of didacticism, as we said earlier. In some ways, it brings to mind the alternating editing of An Armchair for Two, made up of poverty and wealth, except that there John Landis’ expert hand told the satire, here the wrist is different and less capable. And it shows. The ordeals that Vanessa Kirby’s character has to face are a continuous succession of literally unlikely situations where the suspension of disbelief becomes more impracticable than what would happen when watching some science fiction film. Lynette finds herself having to do things, but they don’t spoil anything clearly, which fails to convey in the slightest that sensation of a person suddenly put on the ropes dealing with the unexpected, which could then lead to advantageous or disadvantageous consequences for her.

It’s clear: the fact of having reduced the story from two nights to one probably wants to strengthen the allegorical significance of the hell that the woman must go through before going out to “see the stars again,” but it’s always a question of seeing her go through circles hell very implausible. And the fact that Lynette, despite all the misfortunes of her existence, is a character with whom it is impossible to empathize certainly doesn’t help. There are millions of ways to spend a pleasant mid-August holiday, and watching The Night Always Arrives is certainly not one of them. Lynette consumes herself in an abyss of fatigue and anger, where every effort is thwarted by those around her. Exploited and abused, she decides to finally take matters into her own hands, without fear of committing crimes or betraying those who placed trust in her: she is not a victim or a heroine, but an exasperated woman, driven by a desire for normality that seems, hour after hour, increasingly unattainable.

Let’s find out in the course of this night that never seems to end, new details on his past and present, in a plot that, if it doesn’t justify at least allows the viewer to identify with it, are almost always wrong choices carried out by her, in an urgency for survival that does not allow compromises. The actress herself contributed personally to the production phase, transforming spirit and body into a controversial character, born on the pages of the novel of the same name by Willy Vlautin. The main problem with the operation, probably to be shared with the underlying work, is that often rhetoric and pathos take over without balance, to the point that at times it seems that all the “losers” happen to her. We do not arrive at sensational cases such as those we told you about on the occasion of STRAW Review – Dead End (2025), but in any case, the impression is that the story overly casts its hands on the drama for its own sake.

Even the dynamics existing between the protagonist and her brother are a sort of faded copy of those seen in the Safdie brothers’ cult: rediscover it in our Good Time review (2017). It’s a shame that here the gender soul is never able to fully convince, albeit tension appears on several occasions, entrusted to uncomfortable and morbid characters such as the slimy fixer of Eli Roth or the careless mother of Jennifer Jason Leigh. A corollary of shadows that help better define the contours of a background that seems to leave no escape, as radio news reports that suggest social apocalypses, often deliberately downplayed to public opinion and the other side of the ocean, initially underline. Precisely for this reason, the city of Portland is not just a backdrop, but a lively and pulsating stage in these nocturnal hours where the fate of those looking for peace to conquer a very personal war will be decided, perhaps forever. The streets, the lights, the twilight atmosphere of the city are an extension of Lynette’s mood, an environment that communicates and imprints psychological crudeness without the need for words.

Benjamin Caron, director with vast and appreciated television experience who had already collaborated with Kirby on the cult television series The Crown, is on his second feature film after Sharper (2023) – here you can find our sharper review. Caron directs with a certain style, but he also falls victim to a screenplay that, as mentioned above, forces your hand often. We insist on dragging the story towards that bottomless pit, so much so that not even the partially decisive ending seems capable of offering the right consolation to an audience who, after such a painful transport towards the unfortunate anti-heroine of Night Always Comes, probably deserved a more cathartic epilogue. The horrors created by modern man remain living and tangible pitfalls in a reality where only the strongest survive. But sometimes it may also be enough to rediscover renewed awareness and understand one’s place in the world, as a cog in a more complex mechanism, to make peace with oneself and one’s demons. The night comes, which could better underline these dynamics, often sacrificed at the altar of a prefabricated emotion that doesn’t seem entirely sincere.

The narrative is marked by a relentless clock, with the hour appearing on screen as Lynette plunges into an underworld of unsavory contact, unrequited debt, drugs, and despair. She tries to recover money from an escort friend (a deliberately irritating Julia Fox), steals a car from a client (Randall Park), turns to an ex-convict (Stephan James) to open a safe, then ends up involved with increasingly dangerous characters, including an ambiguous drug dealer from the past (Michael Kelly) and a predatory party animal (Eli Roth). The city turns into a labyrinth of moral and physical dangers, with tension growing with every wrong choice. Vanessa Kirby is the emotional focus of the film. His interpretation is tense, physical, hollow. Although the script tends to overload Lynette’s turbulent past with explanations, Kirby still manages to suggest anger and vulnerability viscerally. Some moments, such as the clash with the mother, reach notable emotional heights. But others slip into verbally explained melodrama, rather than shown. The actions of the protagonist gradually become more unlikely, and the film struggles to make the evolution of the character credible, risking flattening him to “the sum of his traumas”.

The film intentionally avoids catharsis. It seeks neither heroism nor sentimentality. It is a harsh, almost hopeless portrait in which society responds coldly, and family ties are more of a burden than a consolation. However, the final confrontation between mother and daughter, although interpreted with intensity, comes without the psychological construction necessary to leave a real blow to the heart. The film closes with a bitter dawn: the sun rises, but not for everyone. Night Always Comes is a film laudable in intent but discontinuous in execution. Caron directs with visual elegance, building a believable atmosphere, but as a British filmmaker, he seems to observe American desperation from the outside, without fully grasping its soul. Sarah Conradt’s writing suffers from some imbalances: certain episodes are too forced to be realistic, while other moments linger without bringing development. Yet, flashes of sincerity and genuine pain emerge here and there, especially in the rare moments of tenderness between Lynette and her brother Kenny.

Night Always Comes Review: The Last Words

A naked story, with Lynette’s struggle for control of her own life and the good of the people dear to her to not only represents a vein metaphor, but a vital and visceral need, a concrete search for a sense of security that flounders in a cynical and violent world. Where simple commitment and the right path are no longer enough, you have to break the rules and not look at anything or anyone in the face to grab, with blood and sweat, what you deserve. Night Always Comes is a desperate fight for survival in a society that doesn’t give discounts, the daughter of an America that hides dust under the carpet. The notable ideas inherent in the context suffer from a partial overexposure of Lynette’s drama, who, despite being able to count on the very intense interpretation of a magnificent Vanessa Kirby, often gives in to pathos and free solutions, with a morbid mood that insinuates more and more, but not always justified.

Cast: Vanessa Kirby, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Zack Gottsagen, Stephan James, Julia Fox, Randall Park, Michael Kelly, Eli Roth

Directed: Benjamin Caron

Streaming Platform: Netflix

Filmyhype.com Ratings: 2.5/5 (two and a half stars)