Bart Bromley lives with his mom and has Asperger's syndrome. He places hidden cameras in a room at the hotel where he works as a night desk clerk, and uses the live feeds and recordings to overcome his social awkwardness by imitating the speech and mannerisms of the guests. On his nightly shift, Bart watches Karen, who has recently checked in. After his shift, he buys ice cream, goes home, and continues to watch Karen. Bart sees Karen let an unknown man into her room. After they argue, the man begins to beat her. Bart watches as a gun falls from Karen's purse, then drives to the hotel to try to rescue her. He enters via a side door, and soon afterwards Bart's co-worker Jack hears a gunshot. Jack enters Karen’s room, where he finds Karen dead and Bart sitting on the bed. While Jack calls 911, Bart removes the hidden cameras, but accidentally leaves a storage card behind. The next day, Bart is questioned by Detective Espada and claims he went home after buying ice cream, then returned to the hotel because he forgot his wallet. Espada realizes Bart is lying because if he did not have his wallet, he would not have been able to buy ice cream. Bart later re-watches the recording of Karen’s room and sees that the man she met had a tattoo of a bird on his arm. The next day, Bart's boss reassigns him to a new hotel. On his first shift, he meets Andrea Rivera, who recognizes that he has Asperger's, flirts with him, and checks into a room. The next day, Bart finds that he is missing a storage card, which Espada finds. Bart places cameras in Andrea's room and later shares a kiss with her near the hotel's pool. The following day, Bart gets a haircut and buys a new suit, car, and cologne. He tries to visit Andrea at the hotel, only to find her having sex with the unknown man from Karen's room, whom he recognizes from the tattoo. Bart returns home and finds police have taken all his computer and camera equipment. He tells Espada his hard drives are empty because he deleted all the recordings before police arrived. After Espada leaves, Bart retrieves a hidden hard drive which contains a copy of the recording from Karen's room. The unknown man Bart saw with Andrea is Karen’s husband Nick, a detective who has been having an affair with Andrea and wants her to kill Bart so he cannot identify Nick to police. As Bart watches the cameras in Andrea's room, he sees Nick argue with her and start to beat her. He rushes to the hotel and enters Andrea's room as Nick leaves, then shows Andrea the hidden cameras. At his house, he shows her the recording from Karen's room and Andrea sees that Nick killed Karen. Andrea begins to cry and goes to sleep in Bart’s bed. He lies down with her and falls asleep. The following morning, Bart finds that Andrea is gone, as is the hard drive on which he had the copy of the recording from Karen's room. He also finds that Andrea has left the gun from Karen's purse on his bed. Andrea gives Nick the hard drive with the recording of Karen's room and they start to drive out of town. The police arrive at Bart's house and find that Bart is not there, but has left the gun and the camera storage cards along with a note for Espada. Nick and Andrea are pulled over and arrested. Bart walks through a local mall and practices the conversational speech and body language he has observed in his recordings.
Cast
Tye Sheridan as Bart Bromley, Ethel’s son
Helen Hunt as Ethel Bromley, Bart’s mother
Ana de Armas as Andrea Rivera
John Leguizamo as Detective Espada
Johnathon Schaech as Detective Nick Perretti
Jacque Gray as Karen Perretti
Austin Archer as Jack Miller
Production
The film was announced in February 2018, with Michael Cristofer directing from his own screenplay and Tye Sheridan cast to star. Helen Hunt, Ana de Armas and John Leguizamo were cast in May 2018, with filming beginning in Utah on May 21, and continuing to June 22. In June 2018, Johnathon Schaech joined the cast.
Release
The film was released on February 21, 2020. On June 6, 2020, the film was released on Netflix.
Critical reception
The Night Clerk holds a 36% approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 42 reviews, with a weighted average of 5.04/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "With a pair of charismatic leads struggling to enliven a poorly conceived story, The Night Clerk checks out early -- and viewers may want to follow suit." On Metacritic, the film holds a rating of 44 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
