The passage of time doesn’t heal all wounds. Mragendra Singh’s studied and melancholic film shows us that some knots can remain forever entangled.
“The Night Before” is a glowing example of the kind of film that doesn’t give easy answers and one that unfolds on its own terms.
By Vishesh Mankal
There is something to be said about films that don’t provide easy answers. It is infinitely easier to take sides and overwork an idea until it loses all attraction. It is equally difficult to take a step back and let a story go where it must. “The Night Before” is a glowing example of the kind of film that doesn’t give easy answers and one that unfolds on its own terms. It takes a seemingly simple premise and takes it to its natural conclusion and that’s what makes it shine.
The main plot of the film is easily surmised. A deaf bride-to-be disappears on the eve of her wedding and shows up at her erstwhile partner’s doorstep. How the two of them navigate the next few minutes of their once coupled and now fractured lives is what the film is then about. But just as there is more to the sea than the colour of its surface, there is more to “The Night Before” than just its plot. It is ultimately about the unsaid, the inexplicable and the half- remembered. It doesn’t matter which language the two characters try to communicate in, what they try to tell each other remains obscured by an impenetrable veil. You’ll find yourself watching in fascination as the two of them dance around each other's feelings, neither of them knowing whether to revive what they once had or to let it remain dead and buried.
Mragendra Singh, the film’s director and co-writer, keeps the technical side of the film as invisible as possible, which goes a long way towards making the audience forget that they’re watching a movie. There is also something to be said about the work of the two lead actors, Shivani Rustagi and Stefanie Estes (playing Shae and Nikki, respectively), both of whom give believable and natural performances. The film is mostly shot using available light, which at first might sound like a cop-out, but it gives the film a tangible quality that might have been missing had it been shot using traditional methods. The sound design of the film (by Brayan Murillo) serves the story extremely well and plays a large part in giving Shivani Rustagi’s character a “voice”, so to speak. The film is mainly set inside Nikki’s living room, which is fitting because in a way that’s what the story is about; it’s about two characters struggling to progress beyond the “living room” of each other’s lives.
As mentioned previously, “The Night Before” doesn’t provide easy answers. You will find yourself wondering what you would do if you were placed in a similar situation. The film doesn’t ask you to take sides, it only asks you to observe and make up your own mind. And that is its greatest achievement. Who you sympathize with is up to you and what you take away from the film depends on who you are as a person.
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