San Francisco International Film Festival 57
Writer-Director Kelly Reichardt {Old Joy (2006), Wendy and Lucy (2008)] favors outdoor locations and dark themes. Night Moves (2013) is no exception. Jesse Eisenberg, the “go to guy” for turbulent young men characters, stars with Dakota Fanning and Peter Sarsgaard as a trio of wannabe eco-terrorists. The casting works beautifully with the older Sarsgaard convincing as Harmon, a hardened veteran of earlier ops, Eisenberg as Josh, a confused idealist and Fanning as Dena, the rich girl who gets drawn into their plot. Christopher Blauvelt shot the film in a rural part of Oregon where “back to the landers” co-exist in relative peace with the establishment. Josh lives and works in a farming co-op, helping the environment more than most of us but that isn’t enough for him. He becomes part of a plot that’s terrible and absurd. As those things go, once they get started it’s difficult to stop. It becomes a matter of logistics. The title is the name of a motor boat critical to their plan and has no connection to the 1975 film with Gene Hackman. Reichardt keeps a deliberate pace and only provides a few clues about what’s going on during the exposition. She also doesn’t indulge in other Hollywood plot conventions. Night Moves is at times frustrating but beautiful to watch throughout and well worth seeing.