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Vanessa Kirby Outshines a Dismal Poverty Picture

The Netflix drama starring Vanessa Kirby in a performance far out-pacing the quality of the movie itself is becoming a streaming subgenre. She got an Oscar nomination for it in Pieces of a Woman, easily the strongest of them and still a pretty good movie overall; less successful though was Italian Studies -curiously atmospheric but fairly dull beyond the efforts Kirby put in. And Night Always Comes is firmly in the same territory. Though it too has some good moody filmmaking courtesy of Andor director Benjamin Caron, it is a movie that seems principally developed to give Kirby a juicy performance and not a lot else.
In this facet, along with the subject matter it deals in, Night Always Comes is quite reminiscent of To Leslie, the 2022 film carried on the back of Andrea Riseborough to a surprise Oscar nomination, in which the lead actress “de-glamourizes” themselves to play a troubled woman struggling through poverty. To Leslie was much more of a full-blooded character study though, while this movie -set over the course of a single night- doesn’t have the time to be. It moves with an intense urgency, communicating well the desperation of its protagonist and her situation (and fairly realistically with regard to those on the verge of homelessness), but it leaves the audience with relatively little to emotionally latch onto.
Kirby stars as Lynette, a Portland woman struggling to be the sole breadwinner for her small family, increasingly finding it difficult to afford the rent on their home and looking to buy it. Her mother Doreen (Jennifer Jason Leigh), irate and intoxicated, is irresponsible with her time and money, while her older brother Kenny (Zack Gottsagen) faces limited options due to his Down’s Syndrome and as such relies on his family. Facing immediate eviction if they can’t get money to their landlord by the next morning, Lynette goes on a tour through various old contacts and sources to raise enough money to renew the lease, her situation becoming more and more despairing as the night goes on.
The options open to Lynette to procure her funds include a wealthy former client played by Randall Park (in a curious departure in tone for him) from her time as a sex worker, an old acquaintance and current sex worker played by Julia Fox who owes Lynette money, and her former boyfriend and pimp played by Michael Kelly who got her into that business when she was underage. Though not depicted in the film until an incredibly depressing moment where Lynette does resort to sleeping with a creepy drug dealer played by Eli Roth, this past as a sex worker lingers over Lynette the entire movie -it is something she can’t get away from, however much she tries to sanitize her image for both Kenny and herself. The stigma about sex work is fairly pronounced, as it implicitly inhibits her options for good work elsewhere and remains the thing in so many of her interactions that others identify her with -and she has trouble seeing herself as anything more as well, especially given so many of the relationships she can call upon are from that period of her life.
But while sympathy is there for her situation, and certainly the exploitation she seems to have suffered in that line of work, the movie’s attitude is just as demeaning. The line between sex work and sexual slavery is blurred, causing Lynette's association with the former to be framed as inherently shameful. And more broadly her situation and past experiences seem frequently applied to provoke pity in the audience, as every escalating step on her journey sinks her further. The movie trades in misery as part of its scheme of social commentary -and indeed there is truth to the intricacies of a lot of these circumstances, particularly the institutional ones that create unnecessary barriers for Lynette and Kenny to escape poverty. A portrait of the people left behind by an uncaring economic system. And yet for as potent as this observation is, the makers of this film clearly have a limited firsthand understanding of homelessness and sex work and petty crime. The reference points often appear to be simply other movies.
And yet Kirby plays it all with commendable dedication and ferocity where needed. She consciously modulates her performance through the movie so that you feel adequately the various stages of desperation she is in, any one of them well worth taking seriously. And though Lynette remains a fairly under-developed protagonist beyond the harrowing elements of her backstory, Kirby issues forth a lot of emotional honesty, over her care towards Kenny in particular. Gottsagen does a fine job too, in spite of the thin definitions of this character, relating just a little bit of quaint personality. Leigh and Stephan James as the accomplice Cody, whom Lynette turns to to steal back money from Fox's Gloria, also deliver solid performances as figures in dramatic conflict with Lynette at various stages.
Caron imposes a suitably gritty atmosphere on the decrepit spaces glimpsed through this unending night, while keeping focus relatively intimate on Lynette and her immediate surroundings as her actions become more extreme and convoluted. The darker things get, the movie never wavers from her perception. Caron is a director incredibly accommodating of his star, but for as much as this situates the audience in the reality of her dire circumstances, it also feels exploited for the sake of ramping up misery. The movie goes to some very dim places, and though the intent of the social commentary is clear, it feels just a little bit nihilistic in tone. Not that the movie should by any means sanitize how tough it is for folks at the bottom rungs of society, but the illustrations of this movie are whatever the opposite of whitewashing would be, especially by Lynette's whit's end in the last act and a very disturbing sequence therein.
It is the intent of Night Always Comes to make you feel mad and depressed for Lynette and Kenny, though it is certainly hazy in communicating where those emotions should be directed at. The movie succeeds at that, but only in the form of a dour slog of disreputable characterizations and environments down every avenue, each sliver of hope quashed the further along things get. Kirby is a spark of life through much of it, a nexus of honesty and sympathy, but to the point you feel for her being worn down, invested less in her success than just her survival. A potent theme hangs over this movie, but it need not be related in such stringently dismal terms.

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