NIGHT ALWAYS COMES - Mark Reviews Movies

Night Always Comes, Netflix

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 15, 2025

Times are always tough for those who work paycheck to paycheck, but they're especially difficult at this moment in time and in this place for the characters in Night Always Comes. The movie, based on Willy Vlautin's novel, is set in Portland, and an audio montage of news reports explains that homelessness is on the rise and, in certain situations, inevitable for some people.

The movie's theme comes through right away, too, in that montage. It's easy but often wrong to blame those who are homeless for their situation, because one missed work shift, a sudden rise in the cost of living, or a bout of unexpected illness might be all that stands between paying the rent or not.

To be clear, Lynette (Vanessa Kirby), who lives in a rented house with her older brother Kenny (Zack Gottsagen) and mother Doreen (Jennifer Jason Leigh), isn't homeless, but circumstances seem to be heading in that direction. She's behind on bills, even though she works two jobs—at an industrial bakery by day and as a bartender at night. She has a loan of some sort that's about to be passed over to a collection agency.

Despite all of this, Lynette has an opportunity that won't come again any time soon, if ever. Her landlord recently died, and his son (played by J. Claude Deering) is ready to offer Lynette and Doreen a deal on buying the house where they live. The place is a mess and needs a lot of repairs, but it would be a home for the family.

The story, adapted by screenwriter Sarah Conradt and director Benjamin Caron, quickly becomes one of desperation and rushing. Initially, Lynette has to get to an attorney's office by a certain time, despite having a shift at the bakery and needing to keep Kenny, who has Down Syndrome and could become a ward of the state, with her. She makes it, but Doreen, who also needs to sign the papers and has the $25,000 down payment, is a no-show.

The mother shows up at the house with a new car, which she paid for with the money that was supposed to be for the house. Doreen, who also works, doesn't want to live in, let alone buy, that house, so now, Lynette has to figure out a way to find $25,000 by the morning. If she doesn't, another buyer, already lined up, will own the house.

Much of the resulting plot, which is a stretch and raises a lot of questions about the back story here on several levels, is maintained by three factors. The first is that feeling of desperation, which goes a long way here by Conradt setting up the basics of the money and, hence, the house mean so much to Lynette. It will keep her off the streets, prevent her beloved brother from being taken away, and mean that she doesn't have to worry about her living situation for the foreseeable future (It's never clear how that aforementioned loan comes into play or, for that matter, what kind of mortgage she'll have to pay off, but we just have to take it on faith that the house will solve at least some of these and/or other problems).

Next is the momentum of how that plot unfolds. Lynette spends the next dozen or so hours trying to negotiate or scheme her way into the cash. We eventually learn that she was a sex worker before, and a remnant of that life is Scott (Randall Park), a wealthy man who occasionally calls her for sex in a fancy hotel. When Lynette explains her situation, she expects to have a sympathetic ear, but instead, Scott brushes it all off, gives her a little extra money, and says he's finished with their transactional relationship. She swipes the key fob for his very expensive car.

There are other plans, mainly revolving around a safe in the apartment of the businessman lover of a friend (played by Julia Fox) and Lynette pulling bar co-worker Cody (Stephan James), who was recently released from prison, into a plan to break into said safe. Every step that would likely get Lynette closer to her monetary goal raises another problem or two.

At a certain point, the movie more or less forces us to stop asking any questions except in terms of what could possibly go wrong next, and Michael Kelly and Eli Roth play characters who embody the potentially worst possibilities. The combination of that uncertainty with Lynette's single-minded obsession is a decent mechanism for the plot, as well as good-enough justification for why Lynette throws logic, self-preservation, and any thought about the consequences of her actions out the window.

Finally, then, there is Kirby's performance, which grounds this shallow and on-the-nose, albeit propulsive, thriller in some kind of emotional reality. At every moment, we buy Lynette's drive to make things right for and, perhaps, prove everyone else wrong about her, but as we learn more about this character, Night Always Comes seems to become confused about what it wants to say about her, her past, and her current troubles. The finale here hits a couple of wrong notes, mainly in giving one particular character a speech that's the final word on Lynette and in trying to find hope in a scenario that movie has gone out of its way to define as hopeless.

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