Major spoilers below for the new crime drama Night Always Comes, so be warned if you haven’t yet watched via Netflix subscription.
Vanessa Kirby characters have had a hell of a year so far, having already helped save the planet from getting eaten up by a enormous threat as Sue Storm in Fantastic Four: First Steps. While her A+ parenting skills were on display in the MCU film, the actress’ new Netflix movie Night Always Comes instead sees her as a desperate daughter and brother driven to committing unsavory and malicious acts across a long and winding night.
Rarely does my blood pressure spike vicariously due to a fictional character’s stress, but holy shit, watching Kirby’s Lynette make decisions throughout Night Always Comes is like watching a wedding ring bounce around a sewer drain before falling in, knowing only bad things will ensue, but without being able to stop it. She’s the kind of person whose presence automatically shifts a room’s vibe from “casual” to “sketchy” in half a second, and it gets increasingly harder to watch her as the film goes on.
On the whole, Night Always Comes feels like a wire-tense ‘70s thriller (sex work industry included) that isn’t as interested in thrills as spotlighting one character spiraling out over money, and not for the first time in life. For all that she earns empathy for being a loving sister to her Downs-afflicted brother Kenny (The Peanut Butter Falcon standout Zack Gottsagen), and for still living at home with their mother Doreen (Jennifer Jason Leigh), Lynette is a lightning rod for fucked up chaos, and made my skeleton want to vacate my skin several times while watching. Let’s relive them, shall we?
1. Lynette Speeding Away After Stealing Scott's Car
Going into this movie blind was perhaps not the ideal choice, as it got all the way up to the scene with Randall Park's Scott with me just thinking this was going to be a "hard conversation" movie, where Lynette would be debasing herself through dialogue to try and acquire the thousands of dollars needed to save her family's home. I mean, part of that is true, as debasing is indeed the name of the game for some characters.
But after it's made clear that Scott is one of the sleaziest and nauseating characters Randall Park will ever play, Lynette sees Scott's car key fob, and makes her first move that nearly sent me climbing the walls with second-hand stress. Obviously she steals his car, and she drives away from their hotel way too fast for such pedestrian-friendly streets. I get that she's trying to put quick distance between them, but still, her running over someone in a stolen car would be WAY WORSE than her escaping at a slightly slower speed.
It's not even a case where she wants a joyride or temporary ownership of the car itself. Her whole point is just to leave his car somewhere he won't easily find it as punishment for not even attempting to use his job influence to get her access to the money she needs. I mean, he's 100% on the right side of things for that choice, but he's still an icky sleazeball.
2. Lynette Violently Giving A Dude A Seizure Via Blunt Force Trauma
Lynette's grand theft auto tactics quickly evolve into something more violent, leading to another "GET ME THE HELL-SHIT OUT OF HERE!" situation. Realistically, Lynette's conversation with Stephan James' Cody would be enough to make a longer version of this list, with all of its stereotyping implications. But things soon get worse after they visit Drew (Sean Martini) to get help breaking into the safe Lynette stole from Julia Fox's Gloria.
Nothing about this situation was above the board. Not having to walk in the dark behind buildings to reach the "front" door to the house, nor the face-tatted shitbird kissing his presumably intoxicated mother on the head before handling business, as it were. So it wasn't exactly unexpected when Drew turned out to be a disappointment of a human being by literally breaking into the safe in an irreversible way, all while Kirby's character hung in the balance between righteous action and detatched submission.
Aggression quickly took over, though, after Drew held her at knife point. (Technically box cutter-point.) Once things got physical betwen Drew and Cody, Lynette's shot at escape was hindered by only one thing: Drew's brother Carl (Ben Rezendes). But she took care of that dude by throwing two big-ass wrenches at his lunky head, with her last weaponized throw sending him into a full-on seizure that was serious enough for Drew to stop his own scuffle to stand over Carl in horror. And amidst gather whatever loose money she can get her hands on, Lynette is shocked into hesitation as she considers the weight of her actions. And then she's off!
2.5. Lynette Speaking To Her Unspoken HIstory With Tommy
This doesn't quite stand up to being a full entry, but Lynette's last-hours visit with Michael Kelly's Tommy takes a predictably dark turn when it's repeatedly implied that he was paying her for sex when she was a 16-year-old minor. Given how terribly her conversation with Scott went, I was so nervous she was going to set Tommy's house on fire or some other irreversibly damaging act.
3. The Seconds Just Before Lynette Smashed A Vase Over Blake's Head
In case anyone forgot just how good genre director (and Inglorious Basterds co-star) Eli Roth is at playing a complete douche-nozzle, Night Comes Along could get a magnum opus distinction, give just how transparently slimy he is. By that point in the night, Lynette's was seemingly in permanent shock, and given the scenes placement in the third act, just seeing Roth's Blake smile at Lynette's distress made me want to run out of my living room, my house, and and neighborhood even before things could reach peak havoc. The sound dropping out definitely didn't help my comfort levels.
Even the way he made a point of fixing the earbud in his ear as he grodily embraced her made my skin crawl. I guess that just helped make it slightly easier to watch when Lynette smashed a glass vase over his head before dashing out of the room to try and find her brother. It didn't make watching what followed easier, though.
Basically trapped and surrounded by non-peers, Lynette gets her ass handed to her for a few before smashing a glass table with her back and cutting it up in the process. She miraculously makes it through that ordeal without being sent to the hospital or mortuary, though she likely wished one of those outcomes would have happened when she later realized that all of her desperate efforts were for nothing, and that her mother never intended to join her fight to keep their house.
Had Night Always Comes entered the 2025 movie schedule as a trashy exploitation movie, a darkly comedic crime caper or an over-the-top revenge thriller, it might not have been quite so hard to stomach scenes where shit goes sideways. But Kirby's performance, as well as those of her co-stars, keep the heightened drama feeling almost too genuine, and if anyone needs me, I'll be sweeping up all the fingernails I chewed through while watching.
