Film Review: Night Moves (2013)

Director: Kelly Reichardt
Writers: Jonathan Raymond, Kelly Reichardt
Stars: Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, Peter Sarsgaard

A dam in the Pacific Northwest is targeted to be blown up by two young eco-crusaders and one ex-con. They want to send a message to everyone and no one in particular and assume it’s a victimless crime, after all they’re just sticking it to ‘the man’ who is poisoning rivers and polluting water so what’s the harm? Unlike those corporate a-holes making trillions, these three really care for the planet and the environment, right?

Night Moves focuses on Josh (Jesse Einsenberg), Dana (Dakota Fanning), and Harmon (Peter Sarsgaard) as the three plot, carry out, and face the consequences of their actions in another slow paced, character-driven drama from director Kelly Reichardt. As you would expect from the director, dialogue concerning plot detail is at a premium and relies on the audience to work out what is happening, to which Reichardt gives subtle clues to aid the general plot of ‘blowing up a dam’; it takes until the word ‘fertilisers’ is mentioned about 20 minutes in before I knew what was afoot. Unlike you might expect from most films with a terrorist storyline, there is no background given to the characters or why they are doing what they are doing, nor is there any police manhunt after the event, sending the film into thriller territory.

We can assume Josh and Dana met at an activist meeting, where documentary film making no longer was enough to get the message across; we see them both watching a short film (being screened onto a bed sheet) where Dana challenges the film maker, and Josh stands in his corner, quietly judging the content. Like many of Reichardt’s characters, Josh is a loner, often framed on his own, in corners, and in the shadows. Furthermore, the three never look like a team who have well rehearsed their plan, merely three individuals who are in this for their own selfish motives and have given no thought of what happens after the bomb goes off. There is no follow up plan just like there is no lasting impact in what they have done.

Whereas Reichardt’s previous three films (Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff) have all seen characters on a literal journey from one place to another, Night Moves sees Josh and Dana on a journey from eco-crusaders to potential murderers when a man is reported missing nearby the dam they target, and where the lines are crossed from which there is no return. I especially liked the shift in tone between the first and second halves of the film, from slow burning character drama to a paranoia study (I think calling this a ‘thriller’ would be misleading), without ever losing focus on the characters and, of course, Reichardt’s love with natural settings. Oregon and its surroundings are just as vital a character in her films as New York is to, say, a film maker like Woody Allen. As shown in Meek’s Cutoff especially, Reichardt’s appreciation for open spaces, natural scenery, and her character’s relationship to those places is an essential part of the language of her cinema.

For the first hour we know very little about the Josh and Dana, and it’s only after the event that Reichardt shows them in their natural habitats. Josh doesn’t have an underground lair with multiple screens and blue prints, but rather works on a farm harvesting vegetables earning very little and has a boss whom he seems to look down on, like all those at his eco-crusader meetings. Dana works at a health spa, just a temporary job (I assumed) like any young girl might have until she finds her calling in life. These are two very ordinary young people, and Reichardt does an excellent job of keeping them that way; even in the surprising moments of the final act when something happened which, at first, I didn’t quite buy into but on reflection perfectly fits in with the typically unplanned and lack of thought given to the actions from Josh up until that point.

Stop thinking for yourself verdict: The film ends with the director’s trademark open and abrupt ending, always leaving the audience to make up their minds as to what happens next and marks the most use of plot (as in ‘A to B to C’) Reichardt has concerned herself with with this and her previous four films. And, although it may star one of Hollywood’s brightest young male leads in Eisenberg, Night Moves feels just as auteurist as anything Reichardt has made to date and cements her place as one of American cinema’s most important film makers working outside the traditional Hollywood system.