Worth: $16.00
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Cast:
Dominique Fishback, John Earl Jelks, Max Casella, Tatum Marilyn Hall
Intro:
…a tough but rewarding watch.
Pitch: A freshly released inmate stalks across state on the hunt for the man that killed their mother. It has the workings of a bombastic noir helmed by Jeremy Saulnier (Green Room) or S. Craig Zahler (Dragged Across Concrete). In actuality, it’s the bare bones of Jordana Spiro’s heart bruising Night Comes On.
Teenager Angel (Dominique Fishback, who can currently be seen in George Tillman Jnr’s The Hate U Give) has been released from juvenile prison, supposedly under the wing of her girlfriend. In reality, Angel skips out on her parole officer in order to find and kill her father. No longer knowing where he lives, she fishes her ten-year-old sister, Abby (Tatum Marilyn Hall), out of her foster home in the hopes that she’ll show her where to go.
Life leading up to, and including prison, has numbed Angel, who will passively hand over the body to a sleazy adult in exchange for a gun. Abby, however, despite her surroundings and blue language, still has a child’s desire for love and adventure. Unaware of Angel’s thirst for revenge, she’s just happy to have her big sister back in her life and play with any stranger she meets on a bus.
Spiro, alongside co-writer Angelica Nwandu, doesn’t settle for easy emotions, as the two girls – and we really must remember they are children – search for their father. Despite moments of light poking through the darkness, there’s never the feeling that a walk on the beach or a big hug and kiss is going to resolve everything. Largely, because Angel appears to get in her own way; best summarised by the scene where Abby has her first period and, despite her attempts to mother her, Angel manages to ruin a shared experience by spitting out a one liner presumably inherited from her father.
Not that you should go into Night Comes On thinking it’s another chapter in the despair porn genre, where the audience is asked to wallow in sadness under the pretence of art. Angel is broken and whilst temptation comes to ease her off the path she’s chosen, she knows exactly what she must do. Fishback’s performance ensures we completely understand her urges, but still want to shelter her from harm, nonetheless. Equally, Hall gives a brilliant performance in a film whose plot, like Tillman Jnr’s The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete, asks a lot of its youngest star.
Perhaps where Night Comes On comes apart is in its final moments when, after taking the long way home, it seems to wrap itself up all too quickly. There’s a conversation that needs to be allowed to play out longer, a moment that could be teased out more, a resolution that might not land for everyone. But then, it could be argued, this reflects the journey of Angel herself. She has set out to achieve one thing and one thing only, and she can’t expect everyone to like every decision she makes.
Moody without crashing into despair, with strong performances from the leads, Night Comes On is a tough but rewarding watch.
