Night Always Comes (2025)
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2025-09 to 2026-08
A desperate woman must secure a down payment in less than 24 hours after her mother spends their life savings on a car.
The story
In a rapidly gentrifying Portland, Oregon, Lynette is a young woman juggling multiple low-wage jobs while caring for her older brother, Kenny, who has Down syndrome. Her primary goal is to purchase the house they rent to ensure Kenny's stability and prevent him from entering state care. Having saved $25,000 for a down payment, Lynette faces a crisis when her mother, Doreen, spends the entire amount on a new car. With a deadline of 9:00 AM the following morning to finalize the purchase, Lynette is forced into a series of increasingly desperate and dangerous actions to recover the money in less than 24 hours.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
In a rapidly gentrifying Portland, Oregon, Lynette works multiple jobs to care for her brother Kenny, who has Down syndrome. She saves $25,000 for a house down payment, but her mother Doreen spends it all on a car. With a 9:00 AM deadline, Lynette first tries to get a loan from a former client of her sex work, but he refuses. In desperation, she steals his Mercedes. She then recruits her co-worker Cody to help her rob a safe belonging to her friend Gloria, a mistress of a corrupt politician. They find $19,000 in cash, watches, and cocaine. After a violent struggle with the shop owner Drew, Lynette and Cody flee. Cody tries to keep the cocaine profits, so Lynette runs him over with her old car to take the money. Still short, Lynette meets her former pimp, Tommy, who connects her with a buyer, Blake. At a rave, Blake makes sexual advances, and Lynette fights him off to take the cash. She returns home bloodied to find Doreen still refuses to buy the house. Finally, the realtor informs her that another buyer has made a better offer, making her efforts futile. Lynette decides to break the cycle, leaves the money for her mother, says a final goodbye to Kenny, and leaves Portland to start a new life.
- First release year
- 2025
- Runtime (minutes)
- 108
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Benjamin Caron
- Writers
- Sarah Conradt · screenplay
- Cast and characters
- Vanessa Kirby · Lynette; Jennifer Jason Leigh · Doreen, Lynette and Kenny's mother; Zack Gottsagen · Kenny, Lynette's older brother; Stephan James · Cody, an ex-felon who works with Lynette at the bar; Randall Park · Scott, a client of Lynette when she was working as an escort; Julia Fox · Gloria, an old friend of Lynette's who owes her money; Michael Kelly · Tommy, Lynette's ex-boyfriend who forced her into sex work when she was 16; Eli Roth · Blake, a man who Tommy refers Lynette to buy her cocaine
- Genres
- crime thriller; drama
- Themes
- poverty; dysfunctional family dynamics; survival; trauma; mother-daughter relationships
- Tone and mood
- tense; desperate; gritty
- Premise and plot tags
- crime; thriller; drama; road movie elements; social commentary
- Source material / true-story basis
- The Night Always Comes by Willy Vlautin (2021)
- Production trivia
- The film was produced by Aluna Entertainment under an agreement with Netflix.; Principal photography took place in Portland, Oregon, and at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, Oregon.; Vanessa Kirby both stars in and produces the film.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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