Like most of Reichardt’s films, NIGHT MOVES is set over a few days. The film starts with a detailed look at the preparation of the last stages of a plan to detonate a dam: Josh (Jesse Eisenberg), an eco-activist, and Dena (Dakota Fanning), an idealistic rich kid, buy a used motorboat. They meet Harmon (Peter Sarsgaard), an ex-marine, and the hardened mastermind behind the plan. Josh has his doubts about Dana but she is footing the bill for the act. In a nerve-racking scene in a feed-store store, Dena buys nitrogen-enriched fertilizer to fill the boat, which will be used as a floating bomb. They take the boat to its target site, a gigantic hydroelectric dam in the middle of the Oregon woods. None of three protagonists is particularly likeable. But NIGHT MOVES pulls the audience in with its riveting thriller elements and Reichardt’s talent at build up and follow through. The second half of the film deals with the aftermath of operation. At this point, the thriller is transformed into a unsettling study or profile of a slow slide into ever greater isolation.

Hendrike Bake