"Gone in the Night" a minor-key thriller that makes terrific use of Winona Ryder

Gone in the Night (2022)

Booking a cabin in the woods is never a swell idea in the movies, but “Gone in the Night” handles this trope with an unexpected wrinkle. Director Eli Horowitz, making his feature debut from a screenplay he co-wrote with Matthew Derby, signals that something won’t go quite right with this familiar yet intriguing setup. It isn’t a mumblecore-ish hangout in the vein of the Duplass brothers, nor is it an outright horror movie. Formerly titled “The Cow” at its SXSW festival premiere, “Gone in the Night” is more of a character-focused thriller in the most minor key, and it does manage to keep one guessing.

Horticulture professor Kath (Winona Ryder) and happy-go-lucky younger boyfriend Max (John Gallagher Jr.) make their way to a cabin he rented for them in the redwoods. It seems another couple has already booked the house. An odd, lanky young man named Al (Owen Teague) in a poncho comes out, refusing to leave, until his more-welcoming partner, Greta (Brianne Tju), tells them they can stay. The quartet of strangers hangs out, drinking beer and playing a board game, until Kath decides to turn in while the others stay up. The next morning, Kath wakes up to find out that Max has run off with Greta. She goes back to the city to move on her with her life, but Kath needs to make sense of Max’s betrayal. Contacting and meeting Nicholas Barlow (Dermot Mulroney), the salt-and-peppered owner of the cabin, leads to Kath convincing him to help her find answers. Or, should Kath have just left it all alone?

“Gone in the Night” is deceptive and a mystery, for sure, but it could decidedly be read as a statement on aging, too, before the subtext becomes more like text. When the May-December couple gets to the double-booked cabin, Max makes Kath the heavy by saying she’s exhausted and that she hates driving at night on account of her eyes. As we do come to learn, Kath was once Max’s continued-education teacher, and they are both at different stages in their lives; Max doesn’t even care to have his driver’s license. Once Max is out of the picture and Nicholas comes into Kath’s life, the possibility of a midlife romance with a man closer in age and experience seems promising. Even with a scene where the two share Big Gulp sodas on some outside bleachers and talk about their lives not going the way they planned, the film almost looks like it could pivot into a lovely romantic comedy. Maybe not.

The casting of the forever-30 Winona Ryder makes the utmost sense with the themes of ageism at play here. With her wide-eyed expressions and performance subtleties, Ryder is terrific and makes Kath a reliable guide to follow. John Gallagher Jr. is fun to watch in flaky, gullible hipster mode as Max and Dermot Mulroney (who shares a 27-year on-screen reunion with Ryder since “How to Make an American Quilt”) brings more sincerity and understatement than suspicion to silver fox Nicholas. But besides Ryder, the real standout is Brianne Tju. As the flirtatious and utterly untrustworthy Greta, she’s fierce and vivacious and very much a thrilling foil to Owen Teague’s more-subdued but equally unpredictable Al. 

When the film leaves Kath’s present conundrum for a time jump and a switch in perspective, the details of the central mystery become clearer before it’s actually revealed in full. This piecemeal, nonlinear narrative structure doesn’t spoil the queasy suspense completely, but after tantalizing us for so long, the film doesn’t knock the wind out of us like it should. Where “Gone in the Night” ultimately concludes isn’t as satisfying as getting there, but Winona Ryder still makes it all a strange, worthwhile puzzle ready to be pieced together.

Grade: B -

Vertical is releasing “Gone in the Night” (90 min.) in select theaters on July 15, 2022.