The Vast of Night is a Solid Debut That Shouldn't Stand Alone

Living in 2020, amongst cellphones, smart TVs, a variety of personal computers, and other highly accessible pieces of technology, it is easy to forget that at one time popular technology was simply a radio, a TV, and a landline. First time filmmaker Andrew Patterson uses this simplified approach in his new film, The Vast of Night, a low budget science fiction thriller set in rural New Mexico.

Each scene in the first two thirds of this film are drenched in suspense, employing low to the ground tracking shots and a heavy use of audio cues. The perspective during these parts of the movie changes from Fay a 16 year old switchboard operator and her friend Everett, a radio DJ. When the two begin hearing a strange sound over the airwaves they reach out to Everett’s audience to see if anyone may know what it is.

During the 20-30 minutes of the film when we are first introduced to the sound and trying to learn what it is the film is exhilarating. Drawing from the same vein as films such as The Conversation and Blow-Out, the audio becomes the focus—and that is scary. We don’t know what we are hearing, these characters are alone out in the desert, and the constant switching between frequency and voices over the radio is effectively disorienting. Patterson sets up a solid science fiction mystery and establishes an equally solid setting to place us as the viewer directly in the action. It’s minimalism at its finest—a girl and her switchboard, a boy and his microphone.

However, in the third act things begin to waver. As the protagonists chase down leads and discover the source of the sound the film starts to get bogged down in the answer and forgets the value of mystery. This is also where the low budget aspect begins to show and it becomes less of an enticing film debut and more of a mildly interesting TV pilot. Which isn’t a bad thing, and Amazon should consider it. One of the coolest parts of this film is how entrenched in the setting the viewer becomes. This feels like a tangible alternative reality of small-town 1950s New Mexico. It is vast enough that a new Twilight Zone type of TV show could easily be drawn from this universe. This was a criticism leveled at another Amazon Prime original—Blow the Man Down—but it seems more applicable here. So many different serialized stories could erupt from this movie, so rather than feeling like the film dropped off, maybe it feels more like it isn’t done growing.