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One of the most horrific murders in cinematic history takes place at the end of Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men when the deranged Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) flips a coin to determine the fate of Carla (Kelly MacDonald). So watching a murder take place, for example, might be gruesome and raise your heartbeat, but, if it’s clear what went down, it can’t really be accused of being suspenseful. Simply defined, suspense is anxiety that stems from uncertainty. This begs the question, then, of what is it that makes off-screen action so damn suspenseful. Despite what should feel like an anticlimactic moment, the remainder of Night Moves delivers with a consistent, skin-crawling, nerve-pinching tone of suspense. Josh, Dena, and Harmon drive away from the site, and a muffled bang and distant flicker are the only clues we are given to signify this big event we have been waiting for has actually happened. Given the unique close look we are given into the process leading up to the act itself, it comes as something of a surprise that, when the bomb goes off, and the mission is accomplished, we don’t actually get to see it happen. We see the characters go through the elaborate process of buying supplies, fake IDs, and scoping out the area, and everything feels tactile and real, in the most ominous way. Reichardt offers us extensive insight into the scientific planning process of the event, favoring, at first, process over emotion to heighten the film’s sense of reality, as well as the monumental stakes, and a deluge of possibilities when it comes to mistakes and miscalculations. The film examines the mission of three passionate environmentalists, Josh ( Jesse Eisenberg), Dena ( Dakota Fanning), and Harmon ( Peter Sarsgaard), as they carefully plan their destruction of a hydroelectric dam. Night Moves follows a similar blueprint for suspense via dissatisfaction. The same goes for Old Joy, a story of two friends (Daniel London, Will Oldham) growing apart that never really ends up resolving itself.
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By no means do we feel satisfied, and that’s what’s so great about it. This is certainly the case in Certain Women, a collage that follows the lives of four women, (Laura Dern, Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart, Lily Gladstone), which culminates, at the end, with one character driving all night to see another, only for their meeting to be terse and awkward. This kind of barren climax isn’t uncommon for Reichardt, who spends much time in her films building up to a moment of catharsis, and has even admitted to manipulating time for this very cause, only to leave the viewer feeling even more apprehensive than before. And all of the action happens off-screen. It has finally arrived: our Norman Bates shower-stabbing scene, our climactic escape from the Shawshank. Halfway through Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves, the film’s protagonists execute a carefully orchestrated act of ecoterrorism.