Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning and Peter Sarsgaard in Night Moves.
Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning and Peter Sarsgaard in Night Moves.
An eco-terrorism thriller with a hard shell and a heart full of moral imponderables, Reichardt's new movie will please those who enjoyed her lyrical, almost hallucinatory quasi-Western Meek's Cutoff.
Like her three previous features, this one's set in Oregon, where we meet Josh (Eisenberg) and Dena (Fanning) as they silentlyinspect a hydro dam in the mountains.
They are unlikely partners in what we quickly sense they are planning: he's a surly loser who does unskilled work on an organic co-op farm; she has rejected a privileged upbringing to work at a spa resort, though not before gathering the funds to bankroll the operation. They are joined by Harmon (Sarsgaard), an ex-Marine who is the bomb-making brains.
We have no idea what brought them together: they seem driven more by an inchoate nihilism than idealism and as the trio forms, there's a fractious, edgy quality to the action and dialogue that makes us as nervy as they plainly are.
But Reichardt seems less interested in the conspiracy - the explosion, when it comes, is a distant background rumble, like a thunderclap - than in its aftermath.
This isn't to say that she doesn't take us through it, step by step: the scene in which Dena obtains ammonium nitrate and the planting of the bomb itself, are delivered with an icy-cool Hitchcockian precision. But when things start to unravel, they do so slowly and subtly, not loudly and catastrophically.
The film is sustained in large part by a fantastic performance from Eisenberg who consolidates the grip he established in The Social Network on characters who are at once faintly odious and mesmerisingly watchable. It's hard to see his Josh at any time as a flawed hero, but he doesn't fit the villain mould either and if the film has a fault it's the final-reel decision to make things too simple too quickly.
Still, Reichardt's smart enough to save the best for last, a bleakly teasing hanging ending that underlines the central idea: from some actions, there is no going back.
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, Peter Sarsgaard Director: Kelly Reichardt Running time: 113 mins Rating: M (violence, offensive language) Verdict: Tense, thoughtful thriller.
