Night Moves Review Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, Peter Sarsgaard

Posted 10 years ago by myetvmedia

A sombre yet suspenseful film, Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves methodically explores the moral complexities of a terrorist act. Josh (Jesse Eisenberg) a loner and dedicated environmentalist leads a trio of activists in blowing up a hydroelectric dam in Oregon. The trio’s intention was to send a message to the corporations that control and denigrate the environment for profit. Josh sees the practical consequence as merely “people might not be able to listen to their iPod every second of every day”. The successful execution of the plot unfortunately and unexpectedly results in the drowning of a nearby camper, sparking a moral dilemma, particularly for Dena (Dakota Fanning). Unable to bear the weight of her conscience, she begins to crack. This is where the story gets interesting.

Harlan (Peter Sarsgaard) is a somewhat hardened military explosives expert, a trade he learned in various tours of duty and is seemingly immune, or at the very least, better prepared for the aftermath. It is Josh however, also wracked by the casualty, who becomes the primary focus of Reichardt’s lens. We see him at various moments, objectively cool to the circumstance, panicked, remorseful and finally, surprisingly violent. Reichardt obviously and carefully wants her audience to explore the turmoiled personal consequence of such an act and Eisenberg is very much up to the task. The film is slowly but beautifully paced to allow the layers of conflict to surface. Eisenberg’s subtle and nuanced performance reveals how his character’s fear trumps every principle and emotion he may have held dear, including a repressed amorous affection for Dena. And not so surprisingly Dena’s commitment to the trio’s cause, spurred by a college course back east and a rejection of her privileged upbringing, cannot absorb a moral universe where although unmeditated, murder is committed. She, like most of us, cannot take the amoral Machiavellian leap of the “ends justifies the means”. Rather, and also to her own astonishment, the means for Dena is the end. Josh’s adopted family of communal organic farm growers sees their effort as “the small steps”, the ‘means’ and the ‘ends’ necessary to set right our consciousness of the problem of environmental degradation, a proactive but pacific green activism. Reichardt gives us both paths, one violent, the other pacifist and the two part ways during the course of the film despite having the same seemingly genuine principles and purpose.


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Night Moves Review Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, Peter Sarsgaard

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