Kath (Winona Ryder) and her boyfriend Max (John Gallager Jr.) are on a remote tree-lined road headed to a cabin in the woods that Max rented for a spontaneous weekend getaway. Early hints are dropped as Kath looks in the rear-view that she is concerned about getting older and is very conscious that her boyfriend is younger, carefree and has a different life experience. When the pair arrive another couple Grace (Brianne Tju) and Al (Owen Tague) are already occupying the space claiming that they had booked the cabin as well. Al wants no part of the new arrivals. Kath wants to turn around and leave but optimists Grace and Max thing the four can stay in the cabin for at least one night. Exhausted Kath goes to be early only to awake to find Max is missing. She locates Al outside as he distraughtly tells her that Grace and Max have run off together.
The two themes of getting older and the fleetingness of time permeate the film. Previously divorced Kath is very aware of her age and how laborious things have gotten for her as the years advanced. She's a Botanist dating a former student making her a cliché she wants nothing to do with. Max unfocused, not working, and in Kath's reflective moments somewhat an embarrassment when interacting with her friends. But she is obsessed with finding out what happened in the cabin and learning the reason why he left her. As part of her investigation, she meets and gets to know Nicholas (Dermot Mulroney) the retired scientist cabin owner who provides contact information for Grace and agrees to ride shotgun on her quest to find answers. The atmosphere builds towards the sinister over mystery beginning with tracking Grace to an Underground club where the bouncer takes a look at Kath and won't let her in again raising Kath's age insecurities. The home screen on Grace's phone seems to show a deeper relationship with Max than expected setting the stage for multiple twists in the final act the majority of which find the mark.
Winona Ryder is well cast as the anxious self conscious Kath. She deftly brings her characters' insecurities to the fore with the ever increasing age comments. Dermot Mulroney delivers a nuanced performance as Nicholas. He is a candidate for a debilitating disease that took his Father turning his scientific mind to search for a cure for himself and other current and future sufferers. The star of the piece is Brianne Tiu as Grace. She is brash, in your face confrontational, extremely comfortable in her skin and open with her sexuality. She is the anti-Kath revelling in the other's visible uncomfortableness whenever she catches a glimpse.
Gone In The Night is a mystery where several characters take a villainous turn. Aging and how to delay or thwart it is the driver of the production and the main focus of multiple of the characters. Getting older is a burden that needs to be fought and battled against. The thought of doing it gracefully is not an option especially given the level of desperation displayed in the film and how an outlandish twist seems believable given the seething need to escape ones natural fate planted then encouraged to germinate in the narrative.
*** Out of Four.
Gone In The Night | Eli Horowitz | U.S.A. | 2022 | 90 Minutes.
Tags: Weekend Getaway, The Redwoods, Rental Cabin, Double Booking, Disappearance, Botanist, Divorce, Flashbacks, Genetic Nerve Disease, Transfusion Therapy, Volvo Station Wagon.
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