Night Always Comes (Netflix)

Some movies we watch to escape. Other movies we watch because they understand what we’re going through.

“Night Always Comes” falls firmly into the latter category. Though it flirts with being a thriller at times, the core of the movie is how desperately everyone is struggling financially these days. So many people across the country are forced to work multiple jobs and are still barely keeping their heads above water. It’s no longer so hard to understand why some people might dabble on the wrong side of the law in a desperate attempt to survive. Even if you wouldn’t make the same choice, Vanessa Kirby’s phenomenal performance makes it hard to look away.

When the landlord decides to sell the house Lynette’s (Kirby) family is renting, she makes a deal that they can buy it for $25,000 if the mom (Jennifer Jason Leigh) co-signs the loan. When the mom buys a car with the money instead, Lynette is forced on a desperate overnight quest to get the money together in time.

There’s an element of neo-noir to the movie, with an increasingly desperate Lynette navigating her way through various shady situations. It keeps the tension up at a corresponding level, but if you dig down at all it’s really a heartbreaking, uncomfortable character study. The ending is both bleak and oddly hopeful, but fails to land fully because Leigh’s character isn’t nearly as understandable or sympathetic as Kirby’s. Lynette may need to face some hard truths, but her mother is the last one who should be delivering them to her.

Grade: Three stars

Eenie Meanie (Hulu)

Tone is so important when it comes to movies.

There’s a place in the world for all kinds of movies, but you want to know what you’re getting in to. Will this be a slightly gritty but mostly fun heist movie? Will this be a depressing character study? Those are very different flavors of a movie, and if you’re looking for one you’re probably going to be disappointed to get the other.

Technically, the first five minutes of “Eenie Meanie” tell you exactly what the tone of the ending is going to be. But most of the middle tempts you into thinking it’s going to be a different kind of movie, and worse makes you kind of interested in that version of the movie. It probably works as a metaphor for the main character’s own thwarted hopes, but it makes for some unsatisfying character arcs and a bleak enough tone that it thwarts any hint of its own hope and contentment in the final seconds. There are arcs in this movie, but pretty much all of them are strictly downward.

Samara Weaving is great as Edie, deftly handling all the character’s contradictions. Karl Glusman is even better as John, turning a potentially annoying, ludicrous character into something absolutely heartbreaking. Their chemistry together is fantastic.

Together, they make me wish that “Eenie Meanie” was a different movie than it ended up being.

Grade: Two stars

Jenniffer Wardell is an award-winning movie critic and member of the Denver Film Critics Society and the Utah Film Critics Association. Drop her a line at [email protected].