Night Moves
Best known for her closely observed character studies and quirky period pieces, revered art-house writer-director Kelly Reichardt takes a rare detour into suspense-thriller territory with this gripping crime procedural shot with crisp elegance by Reichardt regular Christopher Blauvelt. A mesmerizing Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning and Peter Sarsgaard play environmental activists plotting to blow up a dam. A coolly composed, purposely oblique, thought-provoking commentary on the sociopathic underside of righteous idealism.
Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, Peter Sarsgaard
- Notes From Ari WegnerKelly Reichardt is one of my absolute favorite contemporary filmmakers. I adore the elegant minimalism she works in, the characters she chooses to follow, the singular voice that unites her very different films. In NIGHT MOVES Reichardt takes a perhaps familiar Hollywood narrative—three people planning and executing a serious crime—without any of the clichés we know, all while shaping a film with almost unbearable tension. Shot by her longtime collaborator Christopher Blauvelt, NIGHT MOVES was also one of the first films that convinced me that the ARRI Alexa digital camera could be a very powerful tool, especially for low-light photography. The film looks incredible, and as the title would suggest, it features plenty of darkness. Perhaps one of my favorite features of Blauvelt’s work here is the very delicate color of the nights, their beautiful warmth showing again that clichés can be rewritten.
