Night Moves

Art & Culture

Night Moves is the new film from Kelly Reichardt, a director whose previous films have been elegant and a little slow. This is still paced in a leisurely manner, but sustained my attention and tension for the full running time.

Jesse Eisenberg is a young eco-activist working and living on a community farm. He, a young woman called Dena (Dakota Fanning) and an old friend called Harmon (Peter Sarsgaard) have cooke dup a plan to blow up a dam as a dramatic way of drawing attention to the destruction of the planet. It's intended as a non-violent act, which involves a good deal of planning and management, and one of the skills of the film is the way we are shown all these preparations complete with last minute hitches which in any other film would lead to catastrophe but here are just another bump in the road.

And of course something does go wrong – obviously can't say what – and that leads to a gradual unravelling of those involved. I found it engrossing and thought-provoking, and only a tiny little bit melodramatic at the end.

7/10