The real world is a mess. Just about everywhere you look there’s something to be despondent about, whether it’s the state of the global climate, the power grab by nationalist parties within global governments, or the general vibe of “get mine” that’s become pervasive throughout the world. It’s no wonder that individuals, now more than ever, might seek comfort in a virtual space. For some, this means rewatching their favorite films or television programs, the awareness of how the plot plays out bringing stability in an uncertain world, while, for others, this means diving into digital games where they can do or be something that they find lacking in the corporeal space. In their latest project, Eat the Night, co-directing team Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel (Jessica Forever; Best Secret Place) demonstrate that there is no ground to go to — digital or real — when the world is ending, but being with someone you love can make existing more bearable.
L-R: Lila Gueneau as Apolline and Théo Cholbi as Paulo in EAT THE NIGHT. Photo Credit: Atelier De Production – Agat Films & Cie – Arte France Cinéma. Photo courtesy of Altered Innocence.
Siblings Paulo and Apolline (Théo Cholbi and Lila Gueneau, respectively) are all each have had for some time. Though Paulo’s out of school and working as a self-organized drug dealer, he and Apolline remain connected through the MMORPG DarkNoon, a computer-based game that Paulo introduced Apolline to years ago. One morning, while in the midst of a session, Apolline is interrupted by an in-game message that the servers are going to be shut down during the upcoming winter solstice. For Paulo, it’s a sad yet inevitable occurrence; for Apolline, it may as well be the apocalypse. What neither realizes is that this notice is truly a harbinger of change to come as Paulo’s drug dealings lead to conflict with a rival organization, as well as a new partner and lover, Night (Erwan Kepoa Falé), the intersection shaking up the reality of all three of them forever.
Developed by Poggi, Vinel, and co-writer Guillaume Bréaud (The Beast), Eat the Night is a complex narrative whose ideas work best in the metaphorical than in the literal. There are three threads from which the storytellers construct their tale: the first involves Apolline (called “Apo” by Paulo) dealing with the forced loneliness of the game ending and confronting herself without it; the second involves Paulo coming into conflict with the other gang (an incident which puts him, by happenstance, with Night); and the partnership/relationship that forms between Paulo and Night. Individually, each one could be its own film. The intention seems to be to use the ending of DarkNoon as an external driving force throughout the narrative with time marked by title cards depicting how many days until the shutdown commences, instilling a sense of foreboding inevitability to everything that passes. This is a rich metaphor as Apo is confident in-game, having leveled to the point of owning elaborate weaponry and armor which give her a warrior’s countenance, versus her more demure presentation in real life. DarkNoon represents a period in her life that’s ending without her consent, something which a more traditional narrative might lean on her schooling for, except Apo’s academics are not the focus of her character arc. Her’s is confronting the absence of her parents (seems only the father is in the picture and is not physical present) and then of Paulo in the face of the game’s financially-forced conclusion. Thus, DarkNoon takes the form of an apocalypse that none of her actions can influence. By contrast, the other two threads and the way they weave in and out of Apo’s are all about character choice — action/reaction; decision/consequence — and whose outcomes carry devastating weight, but not necessarily in the manner intended by Poggi and Vinel.
L-R: Erwan Kepoa Falé as Night and Théo Cholbi as Paulo in EAT THE NIGHT. Photo Credit: Atelier De Production – Agat Films & Cie – Arte France Cinéma. Photo courtesy of Altered Innocence.
Consider this: video games are an outlet for frustration and a way for people to engage with others. The 2024 documentary The Remarkable life of Ibelin touches on how the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) World of Warcraft enabled Mats Steen, born with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, to have the virtual life that he couldn’t have on the other side of the screen. Just because one plays games as a way to dissociate from reality doesn’t mean that the online world isn’t real to the player. Interestingly, the way that Apo speaks of playing, often talking about kill count as we’re being shown her violently dispatching other players or enemies, gives a sense of someone not yet tapped into their power as a corporeal figure. Watching Apo, one doesn’t see someone who is preparing to turn 18 at some point and graduate from high school into the real world, perhaps to study art given the drawings adorning her room. She seems like someone who is reluctant to shed the cocoon of her avatar. By contrast, though, Paulo is the one who started playing first and who Apo sees as an important figure in the game. His entrepreneurial spirit gets him into the kinds of scraps in the real world that Apo’s avatar plays at virtually, yet he doesn’t treat the altercations as serious consequence-wise. Perhaps the narrative is intended to juxtapose the real world against the digital, pitting the stories of these siblings against one another (Apo’s isolation and reluctance to form bonds within the game outside of Paulo vs. Paulo’s interest in connecting with others physically) and the differing ways in which violence is inconsequential in one and permanent in the other. However, if this is the intent of the storytellers, the total story is less effectual than intended largely because the antagonists in the real world aren’t fleshed out in any way beyond “violence is the tool of the powerful to maintain fear and control.”
It’s not that Eat the Night requires an antagonist of any kind considering that the end of DarkNoon is, for Apo, the end of all things. Having her brother getting into a relationship (sans drug dealings) would be narrative conflict enough as he finds connection in the real world against her unwillingness to let go of the digital (a concept made stronger by a brief scene shot as if we the audience are peeking in on Apo in a private moment). By incorporating the opposition dealers, at least initially, it created the opportunity for a meet-cute between Paulo and Night, but the escalation that follows makes one feel like they’re watching a different kind of film in which the DarkNoon plot is not the center and is far more inconsequential than it actually ends up being to two-thirds of the characters until the final moments of the film. Thus, the ideas of it, the symbolism within Eat the Night are fascinating as a look at modern youth and the ways in which they cope with a small life in a small town, but they don’t necessarily mesh in a way where one feels anything other than sadness at the inevitability of the shutdown. But Poggi, Vinel, and Bréaud clearly want us to get so much more out of it, even going so far as to blend the real with the virtual toward the end, and, yet, it feels so muddled at that point that one struggles to pin down exactly what we were intended to get from it.
A scene from EAT THE NIGHT. Photo Credit: Atelier De Production – Agat Films & Cie – Arte France Cinéma. Photo courtesy of Altered Innocence.
The threads may not stitch together neatly, but the performances and the world within certainly feel raw and lived in. Raphaël Vandenbussche’s (Rodeo) cinematography gives each thread its own look and feeling so that we understand the coldness of the antagonist’s world, Apo’s internal isolation despite being surrounded by her beautiful art, and the passion of Paulo and Night’s romance. It’s not so much that each thread possesses its own visual language (DarkNoon apart, of course, as that’s presented like machinima) so much as the cinematography takes advantage of the characters’ respective settings and makes the most of them in concert with the performances from the cast to bring about the sensations of solitude, desire, and cold rage. To their credit, the central three performers bring with them an integrity so that, even when things don’t coalesce beyond the philosophy explored, the audience doesn’t lose interest or hope. Most importantly, when the apocalypse does come, by virtue of these performances, do we find ourselves similarly crushed. It’s just a shame that it’s all we feel and, even then, it passes quickly.
In U.S. theaters January 10th, 2025.
Available on Blu-ray and DVD March 11th, 2025.
For more information, head to the official Altered Innocence Eat the Night webpage.
Final Score: 2.5 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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