By all accounts I should have loved The Vast of Night, with its slow burn methodical pace exploring grand sci-fi themes through a micro lens. Perhaps the biggest reason for my possible enjoyment would be its links in themes, presentation and style to one of the my favourite shows of all time, The Twilight Zone. However for multiple reasons the film just simply missed the mark for me, which I found greatly unfortunate for my main issues with the film and it’s presentation were frequently juxtaposed in the next scene by a stunning shot or sequence. All in all however I found the film to have a simultaneously loose and very firm handle on its tone. The Vast of Night is not a bad film, but it seems that I cannot get on board the bandwagon of it being one of 2020’s best, despite my own many personal biases in its favour that I had before sitting down to watch it.

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The Vast of Night starts so excellently that I can’t believe that I left it with the opinion that I did. We are spending one night in New Mexico in 1958 with Fay and Everett, a switchboard operator and a radio DJ. The night in question is the night of the local basketball final and so the town is more or less a ghost one, however tension and anxiety infects the place as a robotic and futuristic sound is first heard on the Switchboard’s and then on the radio. The tension in the town however only continues to build and build as more and more people start commenting on the fact that “there is something in the sky”. The film is a slow burn piece and takes its cues from its wonderfully taut and sparring sound design by Johnny Marshall, giving us breadcrumbs as we discover the films mystery as Fay and Everett do. In many ways the sound design is the film’s best feature, with it propelling us through the film stylistically and sensually, whilst it stands as the leading narrative thrust of the feature. The films cast brings us into this world very well with the film featuring four very strong lead performances; Jake Horowitz as Everett is cocky and headstrong but lets his subtlety take over when serious matters are at hand. Sierra McCormick as Fay is more jovial and light-hearted, at this she is great, but some of her later more anxious moments come off as slightly forced. Bruce Davis and Gail Cronauer are our two speakers of truth in the film and both deliver the film’s two strongest scenes; Davis’s voice is all we get as his Billy informs us of a past job, the age in his voice and pain is all conveyed with a few simple words. Cronauer however takes the cake in an elegant slow-push in as she recalls a tragic tale, her vulnerability and anxiety is brought to us with deftness and a delicate quality that makes it all the more intriguing to watch. These performances are helped in no small part by the film’s marvellous screenplay, from Andrew Patterson (the film’s director under the pseudonym of James Montague) and Craig W. Sanger which builds gradually and features some truly stunning monologues and stretches of dialogue, imbuing commentary and realism into a story of grand science fiction. The human touch to this alien story is what makes the screenplay so strong. Patterson wrote, directed, edited and produced the film and where as his strong suit in writing is clearly evident, his strengths in directing and editing are far less steady-handed in this debut unfortunately.

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The main issues with the film are in a capturing of a visual language, mainly within the editing (by Patterson under the pseudonym of Junius Tully) which grows more and more impatient and rapid as the film goes on. I understand the reasoning for this, with the first half of the film featuring some truly stunning one shots by Patterson that bring us into this world and the atmosphere brilliantly, the rapid editing afterward should heighten the tension in its juxtaposition. However the editing is just far too frequent and choppy and led me to feel quite nauseated at points. The sure hand that led us through the first half had seemingly disappeared. Patterson’s touch and direction when it comes to these one-shots was powerful and wonderfully effective, which as aforementioned was what made the rest of the film so disappointing. The film also utilises blackouts and fades frequently, some far more effective than others, but during the scene with our phone call with Billy a repeated fading to black and returning took me completely out of the power of the scene. Once was effective as we began to zone more so into the words that were being said, however multiple times led me to feel that the director didn’t exactly know what to do in the scene and where we should be looking. Paradox Theater is The Twilight Zone homage at the heart of the film’s opening and framing and although its initial appearance was corny and overdone, it didn’t affect my opinion of the film too badly. However its repeated emergence throughout the film repeatedly took me out. It seems the repeated theme of these choices is that instead of bringing us into the world, they only seemed to take one out. The overall look of the film too with M.I Littin-Menz cinematography was grainy and beautifully lit, but also had moments of odd colour correction or possibly over-esposure after the fact that made the vision of the film at once again unclear in its presentation.

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A disappointing 5/10 which although I grow to appreciate more and more as time passes, I cannot feign my many annoyances with the film’s presentation as I was actually watching it. The Vast of Night is a fine little sci-fi film that I had enjoyed watching for the most part, however a leaning more so into the methodical slow-burn of its first half and a distancing from the overly frantic and at times unwatchable nature of its second half, would have benefited the film immeasurably. As aforementioned Patterson seems to know exactly what he’s doing and then fumbles the exact next scene. A strong debut however and I hope his handling of presentation and editing only strengthens with his next feature.

P.S. The ending was haunting and perfectly effective. Not once tilting it’s hand or winking or indulging in fruitless ambiguity. The film’s ending was exactly what the film needed and for me at least, saved it just a little.

 - Thomas Carruthers