Jesse Eisenberg’s second film of the LFF is Kelly Reichardt’s low-budget, simmering thriller, confirming his work-led choices since The Social Network. “This was the only blockbuster I was offered,” he deadpanned, asked at the first screening’s Q&A about the giant roles that must be coming his way. “I sure was surprised when I got on set...”
Reichardt’s follow-up to her Western Meek’s Cutoff is another genre rethink, following darkly introverted Josh (Eisenberg), Dena (Dakota Fanning), a rich girl determined to prove her worth, and morally careless ex-Marine Harmon (Peter Sarsgaard) as they blow up an Oregon dam, accidentally killing a man. As Josh goes to ground at an organic farm, Dena’s unstable reaction to their act’s fatal consequence disquiets him, till further action seems inevitable.
Reichardt’s use of beautiful Oregon landscapes makes its own point about why local eco-activism would be so fervent, though her flaky trio are untypical of the muscular commitment found at its far edge. Her disinterest in showing motivation means we’re left to infer it, especially in gloweringly uncommunicative Josh. Reichardt’s uncommitted questioning of the politics at her story's core is also a very 21st century contrast to the previous Night Moves, Arthur Penn’s Gene Hackman-starring, shattering thriller of post-Watergate despair, and the same era’s ecologically loving eco-terrorist novels by Edward Abbey (similarities to his The Monkey-Wrench Gang are the subject of legal action).
This Night Moves is oddly memorable, and its stars excellent. But the atomised ennui which sets in after its off-screen big bang is infectious.
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