Movie Review: 'Eat the Night' Thrives in Authentic Setting

Eat the Night

Directed by Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel

Written by Guillaume Breaud, Caroline Poggi, Jonathan Vinel

Starring Lila Gueneau, Theo Cholbi, Erwan Kapoa Fale

Release date January 10th, 2025

Published January 19th, 2025

Eat the Night stars Lila Gueneau and Theo Cholbi as siblings, Appoline and Pablo. Having apparently been abandoned by their parents, Pablo supports the two of them by selling drugs while the two share a bond over a video game called Darknoon. The game is pretty much Appoline’s obsession. It became her world when she and her older brother began playing together and it became a source of comfort and continuity amid the chaos of their day to day lives.

Thus, when the makers of Darknoon announce that the game is coming to an end in just mere months, it sends Appoline and Pablo on separate paths. While Appoline remains obsessed with the gaming world, Pablo looks outward. After being assaulted while selling drugs on gang turf, Pablo is cared for by Night, a kindly hotel employee. Pablo returns to see Night the following day on the pretense of offering him a job producing and selling drugs with him.

This is, however, just a pretense. Pablo is gay and in Night he sees romantic possibilities. They quickly turn their working arrangement into a relationship where the drug den that Pablo set up in an abandoned house in the woods becomes a home for the two of them to share away from prying eyes and the uncomfortable questions about how serious they are about this relationship. Unfortunately, the time Pablo is spending with Night keeps him from playing Darknoon with Appoline who grows to resent her brother’s newfound romance.

The plot, such as it is in Eat the Night, turns when Pablo is arrested for selling drugs following another encounter with the gang that assaulted him. Pablo uses his one phone call to ask Night to look after Appoline while he’s incarcerated. He will be out in a few months and once he’s out, he wants for him and Night to leave this life behind. There are plenty more complications to come as Night struggles to connect with Appoline, Appoline and Pablo’s absent father returns, and Night struggles without Pablo.

Eat the Night was co-directed and co-written by Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel who take great care not to linger on plot points. All of the stuff I mentioned about Appoline and Pablo’s backstory and their relationship throughout the story is just implied, it’s never really discussed. Though there is some brief narration from Appoline, the movie doesn’t spend a lot of time on info-dump exposition. This makes the film feel more authentic as so many other movies insecurely underline relationships and emotions via stultifying dialogue.

So many movies stop the action to say “Hey person who is my brother, how are you? I’m good, my brother and as I am your sister, I can tell you that our parents have been gone for several months which you already know but the audience watching us in this movie don’t.” Clumsy exposition is a major pet peeve for me and I enjoyed how Eat the Night efficiently imparts information via context, visual cues, and sparse exposition.

That leaves the directors to focus on creating an atmosphere and that’s another strong element of Eat the Night. The film has a grungy, lived in quality. The sets and costumes feel like they’ve spent years being lived in by these people. It feels specific in ways so many other, lesser movies carelessly dispense with. The setting feels urgent and alive, especially the drug house which briefly becomes Pablo and Night’s highly unconventional love nest.

Eat the Night is no flawless masterpiece, the video game universe depicted for Darknoon is derivative, copy pasted from so many modern online games. I would have liked a little more imagination than a clone of Elden-Warham-Rim, or other such games. I am not a gamer but I have to imagine that they have an appeal greater than what we see in this movie. How else would these games inspire the loyalty and dedication that Appoline demonstrates for her game, as unworthy as it appears in Eat the Night.

Eat the Night is a French film so be prepared for subtitles, I know that is a barrier for many of my fellow Americans. That said, if you are an adventurous-sort and willing to read along with a movie, Eat the Night is worth a look. It’s an unconventional gay romance on the lowest end of the economic ladder that feels authentic and passionate in ways modern Hollywood depictions of relationships, gay, straight, or otherwise, rarely do. Modern Hollywood romance feels more like a car commercial or lifestyle pornography. Eat the Rich is about the excitement of new love against a background devoid of high end product placement.

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