Night Moves

One of the premiere voices in independent cinema, Kelly Reichardt earned her renown on the industry's periphery, working with skeletal resources to craft singular works of poetic realism, each of them arrestingly intimate yet infused with political commentary. Night Moves marks a significant step deeper into political drama.

All of Reichardt's characters — the reunited friends struggling to reconnect in Old Joy, a young woman making her way north in search of work in Wendy and Lucy, the desperately lost homesteaders of Meek's Cutoff — are outsiders of some kind, marginalized by economics or ideology, seeking a place in a less-than-welcoming American landscape. The characters at the centre of Night Moves are no exception, though their actions are more extreme than anything depicted in Reichardt's previous work.

The film follows three clandestine activists scheming to blow up a dam — and the ways their lives unravel in the aftermath. Josh (Jesse Eisenberg), Dena (Dakota Fanning), and Harmon (Peter Sarsgaard) are meant to perform their act of eco-terror and then go their separate ways. But when the full results of their actions come to light, a clean getaway may prove more elusive than they'd anticipated.

This is a film about a plot; it is also a far more plot-heavy film than we're accustomed to seeing from this most austere of auteurs. Perhaps it is best to think of Night Moves as Reichardt's personal spin on a genre — but which genre? The film slips seamlessly from a suspenseful thriller into a tale of moral consequence. Only a filmmaker as adept at tone as Reichardt could make such a transition so fluidly. And only a filmmaker with Reichardt's integrity could keep us so captivated, questioning our sympathies and wondering how to navigate our political conscience in troubled times.

JANE SCHOETTLE