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Review: Night Moves

★★★☆☆
Three Stars

A corkscrew wind chime hangs from a tree, spinning in the wind. Its edges grow and shrink as it turns, in and out, in and out. It’s always there, yet seems to disappear and reappear. This image defines Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves, an ecopolitical thriller which follows three activists in the build up to, and aftermath of, their attempt to destroy a hydroelectric dam.

The film is obsessed with this apparent magic trick, with the idea of hiding in plain sight. Unfortunately however, just like the wind chime, an illusion can only hold your attention for so long and, after a promising start, the film gradually squanders our interest as it runs out of places to go.

A slow burn from start to end, the film takes its time introducing its characters and revealing the plot. We’re first introduced to Josh, an introverted, calculating presence played with surprising shades of vulnerability by Jesse Eisenberg.

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Josh is soon joined by Dakota Fanning’s Dena, and Harmon, a lackadaisical ex-marine perfectly played by Peter Sarsgaard. The film shines in the quiet moments of miscommunication between these three characters, who must trust each other with their lives, but know and say so little to one another.

We feel the anxiety of the characters as we follow them through the minutiae of their preparations. We watch them procure a boat, acquire 500 lbs of fertiliser, and navigate a police check. Reichardt wrings every drop of tension from these situations – we watch in terror as the characters push the needle between making progress and attracting attention.

For much of the film’s midsection, Reichardt wisely puts the focus on Dena, whose humour and passion make her the film’s most likeable character, even as she remains something of an enigma. Fanning’s slightly rehearsed quality becomes a virtue in the role. Her behaviour is learned, copied, and replicated from those around her. We, like Josh and Harmon, never know exactly who we’re looking at.

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The film is really a film of two halves, the first perhaps the least glamorous heist movie ever shot, the second an attempt to dramatise the human costs of secrecy. The first half’s slow, steady pace does nothing to hinder its sense of purpose, thanks to Reichardt’s controlled direction and three strong performances from her leads.

However, the script takes a risky gamble by placing the heist as the film’s centrepiece rather than its climax, and it’s a bad bet from which the film never truly recovers. The explosion sends the gang scattering in all directions, off to hide in the normalcy of their everyday lives. Reichardt cuts short the film’s most compelling aspect – the paranoia and mistrust between the conspirators – by separating the characters for the final hour, and as a result the film drags without a clear direction.

The motivations of the central trio are sketched only lightly – ideological, humanitarian, perhaps a little anarchic. This lightness of touch allows the film to engage politically without having an agenda itself. It seems content to act as a conduit for discussion, rather than attempt to provide conclusions.

An early scene sees Dena and Josh watching an activist’s film screening. The film is crude and amateurish, but they are inspired to act by its message of small scale resistance. Later a character remarks that blowing up the dam was “just a piece of theatre.” In this way the film offers differing perspectives on the medium of terrorism, but they never loom too large over the human story at the film’s fore. It’s a tricky balancing act, and not a wholly satisfying one.

Reichardt, as she has in her previous films, wonderfully captures the dichotomous tranquility and wildness of nature. The score is minimalist but ominous, the editing sparse but deliberate. Her style is austere, but it brims with portent.  She presents us with her story, with her images, but we are left to infer their meaning; we are, like that wind chime, twirling in the breeze.

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