The Vast of Night - Best Movie I've Seen This Year
The Vast of Night is a 2019 flick directed by Andrew Patterson and is his debut. It stars Sierra McCormick and Jake Horowitz. It’s currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
Do you ever watch a movie, and when it’s finished you feel privileged to have seen it? You feel in awe that you got to share that story? That’s how I felt when I finished The Vast of Night. It’s like The Twilight Zone meets Closer Encounters of the Third Kind set in the ‘50s. It’s easily the best movie I’ve seen so far this year. But reading reviews I can see it’s a very divided flick; people either love it or hate it. Most of the people who hate it seem to think it’s too slow and nothing happens. And yeah, this movie isn’t fast paced with aliens jumping out at you left, right, and center. But it’s a beautiful story with a haunting ending and I wanna talk about it!
What’s it all about:
We follow two characters on one night in a small town in New Mexico called Cayuga. First is 16-year-old Fay who works as a switchboard operator and second is Everett who is a radio DJ. They have a great back and forth relationship, Fay looks up to Everett and is interested in her new tape recorder which he teaches her how to use. On this particular night, pretty much the entire town is at a high school basketball game while Fay and Everett work.
Fay notices the radio show is picking up a mysterious signal and alerts Everett to it. He puts the signal on the show and asks anyone to call in if they recognize it. A man named Billy calls them telling them he was in the military and recognizes that sound and that it comes from outer space. The two teens track down another tape that has the same sound on it, when they play it over the station the power goes out. Then the switchboard lights up with people claiming there’s “something in the sky.” And so the teens head out to figure out what exactly is going on.
“I suppose I’m telling you is cause I’m sick and I’m old and no one listens to us.”
What I loved: (spoilers)
I mean….everything?
Let’s start with our characters – they’re so well thought out and have such great chemistry. There’s so many humorous parts with the two of them interacting. Faye constantly chatting and telling Everett stories. Everett constantly mentoring her but also acting like a big brother. Then there’s the outside characters – Billy is only a voice over the radio but we learn so much about him in the 20 minutes he’s around. Then there’s Maybel, the old woman they visit who tells them about the aliens. She’s got this incredible story that she tells about her son and encountering these “people in the sky” and again, she’s there for about 20 minutes but you learn so much. This entire story is moved along by only four characters and it’s done so smoothly and realistic.
I loved the messages being shared in this story. Billy, a Black man, speaks of how the military only used Black and Mexican soldiers to work on this UFO type stuff because they knew no white man would believe a word out of their mouths if they spoke of it. He also apologies for being Black to Everett, knowing that unfortunately it would discredit his story. It’s such a minor plot point that says so much. And depressing at how that still applies today. The second message that was powerful was when Maybel is speaking about the aliens. She talks about how the aliens seem to pick a small, isolated town, wait until the majority of people are in one place (aka the basketball game) and go after the ones that are alone not at the event. She says they talk to people, they tell them things and mess with that person’s brain. She believes they are the reason humanity is the way it is. She says, think about why wars are started, how a seemingly normal and good person can snap and kill someone, how we obsess over the way we look and how much we weigh. She thinks that’s the aliens stirring that stuff up, distracting humanity from them by causing us to act this way. It’s a powerful story and it’s also heartbreaking. It would be nice to think that aliens were stirring us around to act like this, but in reality – humans are just terrible. We do this to ourselves. “Free will is impossible with them up there.”
The ending – after Fay and Everett leave Maybel’s, pick up Fay’s little sister, and go off with a couple who had seen the lights in the sky, things pick up quickly. Fay and Everett quickly realize Maybel’s story is true and they escape the couple’s car running into the woods. There they encounter the ship. This scene is so incredibly gorgeous and emotional that I had goosebumps all over my arms. And while we don’t see Fay and Everett get abducted, the final scene shows their footsteps disappear and Everett’s tape recorder laying on the ground, echoing the story Maybel told of her son disappearing. It’s a beautiful and haunting way to end it.
“I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.”
Overall, this is a strong 5/5 for me. No, it’s not for everyone. But damn I loved this and just wanted to wrap myself up in the story. From excellent performances to an incredible score, to beautifully shot moments, The Vast of Night is an incredible accomplishment from a first time director.
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