“You’re gonna do big things, honey; you’re too big for this town.”
I blink rapidly at the middle-aged Southern woman who has just held me down and forced contact lenses into my eyes for the first time. Despite her firm hand, I know the act hurts her feelings a little bit too. Her neon blue nurse scrubs in combination with my newfound super-vision (normal vision to most people) make the moment dazzling. I’m not moved by her proclamation of my specialness; however, I had heard it all before.
“People are gonna listen to you,” she says, pumping floral-scented soap into my palms. “They may not listen to me, but they’ll listen to you.” Her comment went over my 10-year-old head, and I haven’t thought about her since. Not until over a decade later as I sit in my dorm room watching a sci-fi flick about teenagers in New Mexico in the 50s.
That’s a big jump, I know, but I promise the two are incredibly related. “The Vast of Night” is the 2019 debut film of director Andrew Patterson. I first saw the movie at the end of last semester, and I haven’t been able to stop bringing it up since. It’s about a young switchboard operator, Fay, and her classmate Everett, a radio host at local station WOTW (a cute nod to Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds”). They live in the small town of Cayuga, N.M. It’s the type of town where everybody knows everybody, and rumors spread like wildfire because nothing significant ever happens. It reminds me of the town I grew up in.
Tonight, everyone is at the big game (high school basketball) except for Fay and Everett, who have to run their respective studios. Everett spends the first solid 15 minutes of the movie being a swanky, small-town big-shot and sweettalking everyone in his immediate vicinity. It’s hard not to like him. Everyone is looking for him because he’s “the guy” who can solve all of their problems, which he does effortlessly while radiating indifference. It’s hard not to want to be him.
I don’t want to spoil any of the actual plot, but I will say that Everett spends his screen time stealing a car, bribing his callers with pieces of Elvis’s carpet (a lie) and being brutally called out by Fay for his attitude. He is trying so hard to be the aesthetics guy, the guy who makes it big and gets out of his small town. Everyone praises him, and he’s a little bit too big for his britches. Here lies the reason I think I keep returning to this movie: Everett is the big fish of his small pond, and so was I.
“You’re gonna do big things, honey; you’re too big for this town.”
The obscurity of being believed in by a nurse at a Visionworks when I was 10 comes back to me now. Then, her praise fell on dead ears. I felt like everyone told me how talented I was as a kid. Now, I see that I just had enough competence and enough praise to make me believe I could be good at anything without trying. Like Everett, I knew how to be everything everyone wanted and how to look good doing it. So it’s Fay’s biting criticisms of the little things he does, the things that make him “cool” to an audience, that really get me.
“When you’re on the radio, you always change your voice; why do you do that?”
“’Cuz that’s how radio sounds! Fay, I don’t need your judgment right now.”
Everett is never good at taking this criticism, and I see some of myself in him. It’s taken three years of college and two major changes for me to realize that 1) I’ve found myself among so many insanely talented, creative people who know way more about their craft than me and 2) criticism (especially from the aforementioned people) isn’t something to be avoided, but embraced, because it actually really motivates me. I’ve found real joy in the gritty process and having to work things out until they’re good. The Lord has been kind to me and gentle in the ways He teaches me, and for that I’m extremely grateful.
“The Vast of Night” isn’t a movie about accepting criticism or becoming a better person, but it’s also not just an alien movie. I think it’s worth a watch just to see what you might find in it. I know I didn’t sit down expecting to see myself in a high school radio host from the 50s who’s too big for his town.
I guess the Visionworks nurse was right about me though, in a way. I’m definitely not in Cayuga anymore.
Well said. I watched it this weekend and was completely drawn in; such unique pacing and storytelling! Their small town represents a different region and era than mine, but the setting feels familiar and the characters relatable. They seem to tell their own story without interference from the director; and the absence of any overt message leaves plenty of room to see oneself.