Delayed Reaction: The Vast of Night

Premise: Two teens in the 1950s investigate a possible UFO sighting in their town.

 

The ability to tell a campfire story has been largely lost. And it's something that movies have always struggled to capture. Filmmakers understandably feel the need to dress things up more. You know, show don't tell. More and more though, I've learned to appreciate the power of a good conversation or a good monologue.

 

The Vast of Night doesn't have a huge budget. The little money it has is used for a couple nice camera shots and to get a few accurate period details. Most of the movie is just people talking to each other, and damn is it ever effective. There's a large portion of the beginning of the movie where the camera is just following a couple characters in mostly uninterrupted takes as they walk around town. And they're just talking. The plot hasn't even kicked in yet, but it still found it totally engrossing. It established tone, setting, and character so beautifully in that bit. The other two best scenes are the radio station interview and when they visit the old woman's house. In both cases, we're just listening to them tell a story, and I was just as interested as if they would've cut to scenes of the events in their stories actually happening.

 

The Vast of Night is basically a 90-minute Twilight Zone episode, down to time period, and it was a blast. It was made for cheap. While I can tell that it didn't cost much, they shot this in a way that looks like the budget was a choice, which is a neat trick. I feel like this is a movie I'm doomed to overpraise because it did so much with so little. Please, think of this as a really solid long episode of a TV show, not a grand achievement in cinema. It hits all the right marks. It shows a lot of promise and isn't designed to blow anyone away. I am certainly curious to see what writer/director Andrew Patterson does next.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend