Night Moves

Ethan

This is a thriller on par with an Antonioni film with a little bit of Hitchcock sprinkled on top for good measure. Kelly Reichardt is a very intimate filmmaker who relies more on emotions than anything else to tell a story and it is absolutely brilliant. Eisenberg, Fanning, and Sarsgaard are brilliant too as they navigate themselves through this finely crafted film.

saitosouta

Perhaps 2 years ago when I don't know Reichardt completely, I watched this & think "What a boring & tenuous garbage is !" Well, I was irredeemable idiot. Rewatching this, I noticed that "Night Moves" is tensely insightful thriller with keeping her minimal & matter-of-fact direction. At this time, I'm especially impressed with her depicting how Jesse Eisenberg's charismatic character is captured by paranoia. Amazing.

bartkl

What I loved is those few seemingly meaningless shots of random people doing everyday stuff. These make you experience so vividly the distance between Josh and his ideals and the average Joe, and also understand him better. His realistically paranoid, odd behavior contributes to this, as does the slow pace, gloomy atmosphere and great photography. Its grand message is told not in words, but by inducing an experience.

Duncan Gray

Reichardt's most conventional movie—her slickest and most entertaining, but also a little slight. Great performance from Jesse Eisenberg, though, and a tense and thoughtful sketch on how a revolutionary impulses don't change anything as much as the life of the activist.

Addy K.

Kelly Richardht turns the tables on the film's eco-terrorists and its viewers by cagily shifting the tone from thriller to Shakespearean tragedy. Underneath the formal rigor (Richardht edits herself, cinematographer Christopher Blauvet meticulously frames) lie casual metaphors about our ridiculous pursuit to control Nature which may exist in a universe simply apathetic to us.

__

Reichardt may have outdone herself here and that's saying a lot. As someone who loves Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy, Night Moves is not as minimalist in plot or dialog as I'd expected. She captures paranoia and dread brilliantly in the third act, something she hadn't attempted previously. And oh yeah, everything about this film is beautiful and thoughtful and gripping.

chanandre

I: The way D moves her nose, whilst smirking/ II: "Oat meal is all you need" vs 'You need protein, girl!'/ III: The way the group - but especially D(ena) - dismisses the blonde hiker; that moment when she looks down & puts her hoodie on, gave me some serious goosebumps; that poor guy standing there, hands on hips, going "Riiiiiight, I should probably skedaddle, before I get any more evil stares from this weird lot" ▽

josé neves

The title in Portuguese of the homonymous Arthur Penn's film is "A Throw in the Dark", which corresponds exactly to the second and great part of this film, which follows the bomb at the dam. Until there, is more of what indie cinema became: banality with pretension. Thereafter, the angst takes over the images of the movie, that obscures and becomes paranoia. Almost as good as a William Friedkin's.