Midnight has an indie drama budget and a studio thriller's tension. The script closes the gap.
Constraint as advantage
Eighty percent of the film happens in one flat. That did not tie the director's hands so much as force decisions: every camera move has a reason, none is decoration.
Two actors, one room
Neither speaks for long stretches. In the silent scenes the director does not cut — he holds a look for forty seconds, and those forty seconds are not wasted.
The tension does not come from the score; it comes from two people in one room knowing different things.
What falls short
The final ten minutes love their own explanation. The sentence the audience had written was better than the one the film writes.
Verdict
The most disciplined thing I saw in a cinema this year. A nine, because the first hundred minutes are nearly flawless.
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