Not many movies could get away with going black for two minutes and get away with it. Vast of Night does. It also dares to use audio waves and fluctuates between emulating a fictional TV show and acting as a real set piece. It’s a daring compilation and composition that pays off virtually without flaw.
Oh and this is Andrew Patterson’s first time directing.
During the Fantastic Fest Q&A, he revealed that when the story was first conceived, he had written “Black and white New Mexico 1950s sci-fi show” in his phone. After some revisions, that turns into a radio show within a Twilight Zone-esque black-and-white show while alternating between story and reality with ease.
Patterson, along with freshman screenwriters James Montague and Craig W. Sanger, provides a simple set up of a mysterious sound in a small town and runs with it. That turns into a glimpse at American military and ethics, a relationship study that turns into a family study using high schoolers, dives into the world of journalism and most of all, asks about the fragility of life and our place in the world even as students.
All of that is situated in a fictional TV show called the Vast of Night that is introduced on a 1950s TV set. Within the show is a radio show that serves as the main vehicle to move the story. To help hold everything together, the two student leads played by Jake Horowitz and Sierra McCormick have the utmost chemistry. The former gives a subdued performance but feels like he was stripped straight from American Graffiti in the best way possible.
McCormick and Horowitz also have remarkable banter that helps with the astounding long takes and also provides efficient, unbroken monologues to ramp up the intensity and personality. Patterson truly evokes a Spielberg flare with his ability to keep scenes at attention in a single shot. One even crosses entire neighborhoods and barriers that a lesser filmmaker would avoid. But Patterson runs headfirst and miraculously finds ways to seamlessly transition between storytelling mediums. That’s in large part thanks to the editing team but also the music from Erick Alexander and Jared Bulmer.
It’s also remarkably detailed in its world building while using Alamogordo, New Mexico as its setting. As someone familiar with the area, the mention of locations like the White Sands along with roads made sense, all the while setting up a main storyline that uses the geography to full effect. Any other town would feel misused. The town is just as vital a character as the sound and actual characters are.
Vast of Night is lightning in a bottle, capturing an entire era and generation within a 90 minute window. It’s among the best of the year. But you’ll have to wait until 2020 when it’ll make a theatrical run and go to Amazon soon after.
