Night Always Comes, a Netflix original production adapted from the novel by Willy Vlautin, is a story about desperation and, by its end when everything clicks together, about cutting ties and self-discovery.

Directed by the British TV director Benjamin Caron (The Crown, Sherlock, Andor) from a screenplay by Sarah Conradt (Here After), it stars Vanessa Kirby (also serving as one of the producers) as Lynette, a woman steeped in distress and despair.

When we first meet her, she stands in front of her house at the break of dawn. In a few short hours, this house, where she grew up, would be foreclosed (the film is set during the recent financial crisis in America, where millions lost their homes in foreclosures). Turning back the clock to a day earlier — when all hell breaks loose — Lynette scrambles desperately to rack up 25,000 dollars to save the house.

Her mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who lives a life so aloof and childish that she appears despicable, was supposed to help refinance the house with a down payment. Instead, with the hours clicking away, the mother uses that money to buy a new car.

Netflix’s Night Always Comes is highly recommended for all those who have had to make a life-changing decision

Holding down two barely paying jobs and prostituting as a side-hustle, Lynette is forced by the ticking clock to push herself through embarrassment. She begs and pleads with a wealthy man (Randall Park), who buys her sex services, to loan her the money. Then she begs and pleads some more to a friend, also an escort, who is now seeing a politician.

That is when the night turns dangerous: she steals, runs, and then ends up searching out the bad crowd from her teenage ‘wild days’ that she had forsaken. With her is her brother (Zack Gottsagen), who has Down’s syndrome, and Cody (Stephan James), an ex-felon who works at her second job.

The hopelessness, anguish and imprudence that fuel her actions is grounded in realism. Night Always Comes is the type of movie an actor seeks to land with just as much desperation, and Kirby owns the role.

As we become participants in Lynette’s spiralling night, one realises sees the walls of her world and, at the same time, the open world that lies just beyond, if she chooses to step out of her predicament (cinematographer Damián García, with his stark, neon lights and anamorphic lenses, and editor Yan Miles get a special shout-out for putting that imagery right in front our eyes).

By the break of dawn, Lynette comes to a conclusion every adult faces at least once in their life: to make a choice.

Night Always Comes comes highly recommended, for those who have made that decision, as well as for those who may yet have to make it.

Streaming on Netflix, Night Always Comes is rated suitable for ages 18 and older — and with good reason: the film has adult situations and situations adults have to deal with in life

Published in Dawn, ICON, September 6th, 2025