Gone in the Night: Film Review

Winona Ryder in Gone in the Night (2022)

When a weekend trip ends with her boyfriend disappearing with another woman, Kath looks for him with the help of a recluse that owns the cabin where they were staying.

On the surface this seems pretty cut and dry but as the movie goes on we get more back story from the boyfriend's point of view. This gives more background but starts to also muddy the plot. There is a lot of info that we learn that isn't important and makes it hard to decipher what we need to know.

While this may not seem like an issue, once you get to the end, and realize what actually happened, you start to question why they even added some of the detail to the script. It made it hard to follow and by the end you are just as confused as when you started.

Winona Ryder is good as the plant shop owner Kath. She doesn't do anything really spectacular, Ryder is much better as Joyce than Kath honestly, but she isn't bad. It's just a perfectly okay performance.

Dermot Mulroney as the recluse who owns the cabin is just as average as Ryder. The entire movie Mulroney, as Barlow, talks about how old he is compared to Kath. In reality he isn't much older than her so it's just as confusing. Had they used a much younger actress the comments about him being an old recluse would have made more sense.

The real issue is the "twist" at the end. There was no reason for it and the reason they gave was not explained well. They set up a perfectly good explanation but then went in a completely different, and worse, direction.

By the end of this movie you are sitting there confused and conflicted. Gone in the Night starts out really solid but falls apart by the end. But in Kath's defense, it was a really nice cabin I guess.