Night Always Comes review: When style trips over itself and drags two stellar actresses down with it

Night Always Comes sets up the promise of tension, grit, and social commentary, but quickly wastes the potential it builds. The opening narration about poverty, overwork, and survival sets the stage for a sharp critique of systemic struggle, but that thread is abandoned almost immediately.

Vanessa Kirby, fresh off her turn as Sue Storm, throws herself into the role, and Jennifer Jason Leigh brings her usual precision. Yet the script and direction never give either of them room to shine.

The early scene where the mother buys a car is clearly positioned as a sign she is reckless, maybe even unstable, undermining her daughter’s desperate fight for the house. But by the end, we learn she is actually the most grounded person in the family.

What should have been a layered misdirection instead plays like a poorly executed reversal, robbing the story of emotional weight. The film teases a meaningful payoff but delivers none.

A failed character connection

Lynette’s journey in Night Always Comes is built on theft, lies, manipulation, and impulsive choices. The script tries to suggest these actions stem from love for her brother and a desire to hold the family together, but it never earns that empathy.

Even when late revelations emerge about the father and the fractured relationship with her mother, the writing offers no satisfying resolution. The emotional core the film desperately needs simply is not there.

The noir flavor Night Always Comes flirts with feels hollow. Its tension is unmoored because the stakes are poorly established, and the audience is left watching a character spiral without understanding why we should care.

Lynette’s questionable behavior keeps piling up, yet the narrative refuses to give her meaningful consequences or growth.

Wasted potential and missed commentary

If Night Always Comes was meant to double as a piece of social commentary, it fails just as badly there. The opening speech about poverty suggests a sharp lens on economic hardship, but the story never develops those ideas.

The film falls into the trap of showing suffering without substance, discomfort for its own sake, without connection or insight.

The most frustrating part is that the performances deserved better. Kirby is magnetic even when boxed in by a weak script.

Leigh could have carried entire emotional beats if the writing let her breathe. Instead, both are underused, reduced to delivering lines in a story that seems afraid to let its characters matter.

As a film critic with years of experience, I do not hold back when a production fails to deliver. Even with opinions divided and some praising the tension, I stand by the fact that Night Always Comes is a failure in execution, structure, and payoff. Every point here is rooted in a close, critical viewing of a film that promised much more than it gave.

An ending with no reward

In the final minutes, Lynette tells her mother she fought for the family in the only way she knew how, then declares it is time to fight for herself.

She leaves town, her entire plan collapsed when someone offers more money for the house. She does not get the house, does not face repercussions for her actions, and the story drifts into an extended shot of cars passing.

It is a flat, dragged-out ending with zero emotional or narrative payoff.

The only standout in the cast is the actor playing her brother, who delivers a strong and affecting performance in every scene, almost stealing the film unintentionally. He ends up being the most grounded, relatable element in a story otherwise filled with empty gestures.

Night Always Comes: A title that promises more than it delivers

The title Night Always Comes is dripping with implication, suggesting a narrative that will circle back to its own darkness with meaning and inevitability. Instead, it is pretentious without purpose.

For a thriller, the tension is shapeless, the resolution is absent, and the audience is left stranded. Compared to recent crime thrillers like Echo Valley (also with big names on its cast, but with actually a story to tell), which balanced tension with strong character work and delivered a smart final twist, Night Always Comes feels half-formed.

Night Always Comes is a hollow echo of better stories in the genre.

Rating with a touch of flair: 1 out of 5 wasted performances. A frustrating, empty exercise in style that mistakes bleakness for depth.

In the end, Night Always Comes does arrive, but by the time it does, you will wish it never had.

Ps.: From what I read about the book it is based off on Amazon,

Written with all Willy Vlautin’s characteristic and heart-wrenching empathy, The Night Always Comes holds up a mirror to a society which leaves too many people only a step away from falling between the cracks,

I am starting to think that reding the book could possibly be a good idea. Maybe.