A tightly wound, character-rooted crime drama about desperate, on-the-margin characters, director Tze Chun’s crisp, atmospheric Cold Comes the Night never dims as an engaging actor’s showcase, even as it trades in and fumbles away some of the unpleasantness that would help it stake its claim as a contemporary neo-noir classic the likes of which John Dahl would appreciate.
The film centers around Chloe (Alice Eve), a single mother who lives with her daughter Sophia (Ursula Parker) in a rundown, upstate-New York, pit-stop motel inherited from her father. For extra cash, Chloe halfheartedly takes part in a kickback scheme contrived with crooked cop Billy (Logan Marshall-Green) to let local hookers utilize her establishment with customers. With social services breathing down her neck, though, Chloe is already looking for a change of pace and scenery when an argument at her property one night escalates to murder. The next day, Topo (Bryan Cranston), a nearly blind criminal bagman, takes Chloe and Sophia hostage, forcibly enlisting Chloe’s assistance in retrieving a valuable package from the impounded vehicle of his murdered associate. Chess-move head games ensue.
Chun crafts an austere, authentically chilly work that could convincingly open a double bill with something like Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan. But at the heart of Cold Comes the Night is Eve’s mesmerizingly rundown performance, a thing of damaged grace. If Cranston’s thick accent is hit-and-miss, and the actor-ly rationale for having Topo be Polish rather wanly exploited for only surface-level intrigue, Chun’s film affords Eve the opportunity to anchor a movie without having to disrobe or play dumb. Some of her interactions with young Parker are heartbreaking snapshots of the sort of stories parents tell to shield their children from harsh truths (Chloe tells Sophia that since she has 22 bathrooms, more than the Buckingham Palace, she’s technically a princess), and especially early on there’s a welcome weariness to Eve’s portrayal that tells us Chloe has internalized all the beatdowns and letdowns and regret that life has dealt her. It’s the much more interesting (and intelligent) way to play this character.
Co-written by Chun, Oz Perkins and Nick Simon (no relation), Cold Comes the Night gets a lot right by way of its attention to the details of its surroundings. If there’s a failing here, it’s that the film tries to wrap things up too neatly. A messier, more ambiguous final reel would have felt more realistic. Given the relative sophistication on display with respect to the restraint it displays in its first two-thirds, the movie’s payoffs are in lump sum more disappointing than cathartic. Still, noir fans would do well to seek out this flick, which suffered a blink-and-you-missed-it theatrical release early in the year from Stage 6 Films.
Housed in a standard Blu-ray case, Cold Comes the Night comes to the format on an AVC-encoded disc, presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, with a DTS-HD 5.1 master audio track and a wide variety of subtitle options. In addition to the requisite chapter selection and a clutch of previews for other Sony home video titles, the only supplemental bonus feature is a collection of deleted scenes that runs approximately 13 minutes. To purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, click here; to purchase it via Half, click here. B (Movie) C+ (Disc)
