Eat the Night Image

Eat the Night

By James Wegg | January 30, 2025

Imagine becoming addicted to a video game (in this case, Darknoon). Imagine being a player and also making your living as a drug dealer. Imagine having your first kiss with a new business partner, Night (after a “sale” that goes badly in a bar). Imagine the ramifications of Darknoon’s aim: “You kill your enemies and expand your territory.”

Stir all of those ingredients together, and you have a production fuelled by countless hours of maneuvering a gamepad and the real-life trials and tribulations of those on the human side of the video screen.

In the early going, it’s all about a seemingly inseparable brother and sister combo: Théo Cholbi doing most of the heavy lifting as Pablo, while younger sis Apolline is, dare I say it?, gamely played by Lila Gueneau—both have battled each other in their day-to-day existence and as well, ideally buffed up in their Darknoon personas, steadily living out their fantasies as a tonic to lives that don’t exactly seem to be bursting with energy, accomplishments or love.

Sadly, frustratingly, the siblings’ longtime video supplier is nearing the end of its digital life in tandem with this year’s winter solstice. What sort of withdrawal symptoms can be expected as the most exciting part of their lives suddenly disappears into the electronic ether?

“Imagine having your first kiss with a new business partner, Night (after a ‘sale’ that goes badly in a bar).”

For Apolline, it’s the dread that dares not speak its name. On a much more upbeat note, Pablo soon becomes smitten by his new manufacturer. Then he delivers his “pills” partner Erwan Kepoa Falé’s buff physique and wide-ranging manner of nuanced dialogues—whether learning the chemistry ropes or winning over his sudden bedmate’s sister is ideally cast as Night adds much-needed balance and contrast to the more difficult scenes that defending turf in an illegal trade can bring.

Once the love interest is established (with very tastefully done, just hot-enough couplings discreetly interspersed with the rising gang-related action), it falls to the rivals to keep the B-story’s drama flowing. Head honcho Louis (Matthew Perotto readily savours being over-the-top for vengeance, no matter how slight the insult to his dominance) summons his band of thugs and tracks down the competition. Lieutenant Ange (loyalty to the boss easily abounds from Kevin Bago) leaves no stone or setup unturned on the relentless road to revenge.

Over time, Poggi and Vinel (who also wrote the screenplay along with Guillaume Bréaud and Clémence Madeleine-Perdrillat) take great delight in placing the game within the film or the film within the game. But don’t both simultaneously blur reality?

Yet by the time it comes for Darknoon to slip over to the dark side permanently, there’s really nothing left for all concerned—even the silent, if well-fed rattlesnake—to say but “game over” and retire their joysticks, perhaps, for another day.

Eat the Night (2024)

Directed: Caroline Poggi, Jonathan Vinel

Written: Caroline Poggi, Jonathan Vinel, Guillaume Bréaud, Clémence Madeleine-Perdrillat

Starring: Théo Cholbi, Lila Gueneau, Erwan Kepoa Falé, Matthew Perotto, Kevin Bago, etc.

Movie score: 8/10

Eat the Night Image

"…Reality blurs, the stakes rise, and the joysticks may never be put down."

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