The Vast of Night (2019, Andrew Patterson) (Patreon)

63/100

For half an hour or so, the most exciting indie debut I'd seen in years. Every Amazon Prime subscriber should at the very least watch the film's first act, ignoring the dopey framing device that positions it as a fake Twilight Zone episode; seven minutes in, I actually re-started the film from the beginning, having been too distracted by how little Patterson's mise-en-scène resembles '60s TV (a disjunction exacerbated by the "episode's" first shot, which does look like The Twilight Zone) to appreciate the virtuosity on display. Also turned on the subtitles, because it's otherwise nearly impossible to catch all of the rapid-fire dialogue, and every single line is pure fucking gold. (The one I jotted down, though it comes quite a bit later: "I don't know a frog's ribbit about those things.") In fact, I spent much of that opening stretch in the state of giddy anxiety that I only experience when watching a film that I (a) am absolutely loving so far but also (b) am aware that trusted friends of mine do not consider nearly as great as it currently obviously seems. The narrative had not yet kicked in, and I couldn't shake the little voice in my head that kept thinking "Aw, man, it must be really weak." And it is really weak. Kind of astonishingly weak, in fact, both in terms of what happens (pretty much exactly what you expect, with no interesting fillips of any kind) and how those events evolve formally (via multiple monologues that had me wondering whether Patterson might have adapted the film from an acclaimed podcast I've never heard of; much of the film's second half amounts to a barely glorified radio play). Just a crushing "so that's why it was at Slamdance" disappointment, really. 

But please, someone, give this man a good idea. That's all he needs. I can't even remember the last time I saw a first-time American director create such a credible, distinct, arrestingly specific milieu from the ground up. (Actually, I can: Robert Eggers. But he had the advantage of going way more archaic.) Despite knowing in advance that The Vast of Night is science fiction, and then being assaulted by a bad Rod Serling impression in the first 30 seconds, I kept thinking of films like Diner and Metropolitan and Dazed and Confused, along with the early Jeffrey/Sandy scenes in Blue Velvet. Unlike those filmmakers, Patterson isn't mining his own past (or a warped vision of his past, in Lynch's case), which arguably makes his wizardry even more impressive. Everything's so insanely detailed, with so much evident creative thought expended on each seemingly irrelevant aspect (most of which are in fact irrelevant, but gloriously so—the purloined trombone!) of each shot and interaction, that the cumulative effect exposes just how thinly imagined most contemporary indies are. Wouldn't have worked without actors as strong as Sierra McCormick and Jake Horowitz, both of whom handle Hawks-speed badinage with insanely casual ease even as they navigate Patterson's magnificently complex traveling shots. (A mid-film "oner" that races from the switchboard to and through the gym and out a second-story window and over to WOTW [get it?] is pointlessly show-offy in the way I despise, but that's the only such instance, thankfully.) Would happily have watched Fay and Everett field-test her new tape recorder for the entire 89 minutes, and by the end I wished that I had. Still, wouldn't miss this dude's sophomore effort for the world. Any story that's not a damp squib will do.

[Anyone know why Patterson has no director credit? Can't find any mention of it online, but I double-checked the beginning and end of the movie and there definitely isn't one. He also apparently used a pseudonym for his co-writing credit. This shit annoys me.] [This has now been answered.]