The recent cinematic success of online gaming being represented competently freezes with Eat the Night, a very silly French drama from Jessica Forever filmmakers Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel.

Siblings Apolline (Lila Gueneau) and Pablo (Théo Cholbi) have a shared interest in Darknoon, a World of Warcraft-inspired role-playing video game that has allowed Apolline to come out of her shell. Unfortunately for them, an in-game announcement conveys that Darknoon’s days are numbered and will be discontinued from its playable server. This sudden news causes Apolline to double down on her gaming to savour the final days of Darknoon, while Pablo focuses more on his covert career in producing and distributing drugs. Shortly after as well, Pablo meets store clerk Night (Erwan Kepoa Falé), and the two night owls hit off a romantic connection before collaborating with each other. As Pablo shows Night that ways of drug dealing, Apolline starts feeling lonely again. Darknoon’s looming doomsday starts to bleed over into real life as the timer starts to represent the end of the world for Apolline, Pablo, and Night.

Eat the Night‘s screenplay (penned by Poggi and Vinel, along with The Beast co-writer Guillaume Breaud) is a sloppy mixed bag of online angst, cursed love, violent turf wars between thugs, and Darknoon’s heavy-handed parable. The characters don’t necessarily have well-defined arcs but rather their own side stories, which could’ve worked had the filmmakers been aware of what they were doing. The audience often feels the film’s buffering momentum, even full narrative do-overs, whenever a new wrinkle in the plot reveals itself, such as when Pablo is imprisoned and Apolline is forced to better acquaint herself with Night.

These flaws in the material could’ve been glossed over had Eat the Night been convincing in its own reality but, other than providing a slick streetwise soundtrack, this goofy film flops there too. Having the video game look as shabby as it does is, surprisingly, a big problem. Movie goers don’t believe that Darknoon is a raging success because it looks cheap. While other online movies like The Remarkable Life of Ibelin and Grand Theft Hamlet also face a similar issue with their asthetics, those filmmakers are wise with how they present themselves. Both of those examples remind audiences that they’re using the same mechanics and graphics as the video games that inspired them. The copycat qualities of Eat the Night are too apparent, and can’t quite measure up to what they’re aspiring to emulate; both in the video game and the reactions from the gamers.

Poggi and Vinel would’ve been better off throwing back even further: set the film in the 80s using a text-based adventure game as the film’s backbone. This change would’ve required a massive re-write, but this would’ve also provided a more unique angle for Apolline’s interests, and raised the stakes for Pablo and Night as well.

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Addison Wylie: @AddisonWylie