Night Always Comes (2025) review

Blue collar worker (and former escort) Lynette (Vanessa Kirby) lives in a run-down shack in Portland with her crackpot mother Doreen (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and intellectually disabled brother Kenny (Zack Gottsagen) and wants to purchase a new house but Doreen spends all their money on a Mazda, so Lynette has to scramble to try to find another $25k in one night: she steals a car from an affluent client (Randall Park), visits an old friend (Julia Fox) and swipes her safe and then speaks with an ex-boyfriend (Michael Kelly), who pimped her out when she was a teenager.  While this is a decent showcase of Ms. Kirby's abilities (she's listed as co-producer), anyone who's been following her over the years already knows how talented she is, but the movie itself - despite being a "race against time" - lacks directorial panache and is inherently flawed: stealing from the dregs of society, even if it's done with "noble intentions," is still loathsome and immoral.  It's nice that they cast Gottsagen, who has Down syndrome, except his sole function is to evoke easy sympathy points with the audience ... and it's a shame Eli Roth (as a coke fiend) has a bit part since he's very good at playing disreputable characters.  The "message" seems to be that you can't "save" members of your family who are beyond helping and you should mostly focus on yourself ... which is brutal (if sometimes true).