It’s been nearly a decade since Joe Swanberg last sat in the director’s chair. What does the preeminent king of mumblecore have up his sleeve now? More of the same, essentially. For those familiar with work such as Drinking Buddies, Digging for Fire, and Happy Christmas, the filmmaker’s The Sun Never Sets won’t pack many surprises; his low-budget, loose rhythm in assembling a set of characters and placing them under a quasi-rom-com premise to bicker and banter remains firmly intact.
Dakota Fanning stars as Wendy, an Alaskan construction worker who’s in a relationship with Jack (Swanberg muse Jake Johnson), an older, divorced man with two kids and who is very much stuck in his ways. From the start, it’s a little difficult to see what would bring these two together in the first place. Their lifestyles are drastically different: Wendy is outgoing and adventurous; Jack is a stay-at-home, watch-movies-and-avoid-socializing-at-all-costs kind of guy. Not helping matters is a notable lack of chemistry between Fanning and Johnson, the former ably holding up much of the film through sheer force of will by finding the humanity that’s missing in the script, while the latter feels plucked right from the shtick of TV sitcoms.
The Sun Never Sets rests on an incredibly shaky foundation of Jack prompting Wendy to go out and sow her wild oats for six months before deciding if she wants to settle down for a life with him. He asserts that there’s no possibility of him ever changing how he lives, so she deserves the opportunity to see if this relationship is what she really wants. It’s proposed to her cordially and casually, but with firm commitment on his part, despite her protests that she genuinely has no interest in doing this and just wants to enjoy their time together. It’s irritating, to say the least, and if anything, throws up red flags to immediately establish this dope as a child who she’s better off without. No surprise, then, that she quickly links back up with former flame Chuck (Cory Michael Smith), who wasn’t ready for commitment back in the day but now seems eager to give Wendy everything she’s not getting from Jack.
Wendy, Jack, and Chuck dance around one another across the breathtaking Alaskan backdrop, professing their undying devotions one moment before dashing those hopes for some innocuous reason the next. While Swanberg’s hangdog flow remains amiable throughout The Sun Never Sets, there’s a repetitiveness to the push-pull dynamic that quickly becomes tedious. Character progression stagnates, and the cast isn’t bringing nearly enough spark to make up for what’s lacking on the page. Swanberg loosely based some key elements on his own life, but it rarely seems there’s enough to really hang a picture off.
Still, there is the occasional moment of lifted energy, such as a confrontation between Wendy and Jack in the bathroom of a bar where they’re both on dates with other people. What begins as a fraught feud suddenly turns into the two of them laughing at the sheer absurdity of what they’re putting each other through, and a declaration that this is all ridiculous and it’s time for them to stop the foolishness and get back together. One wishes this sort of self-effacing charm was present in more of the picture, or that these little bickerings didn’t become old hat for the characters long before the credits hit.
The Sun Never Sets certainly benefits tremendously from its unique setting, with cinematographer Eon Mora shooting on crisp 35mm film and making ample use of Alaska’s alluded-to absence of nighttime. Scenes like the bar tiff take on a deliberately odd afterglow when the characters all stumble outside late at night and are still met with the harsh daylight. Kudos to Swanberg for placing his story here; without it, there isn’t much to be found.
The Sun Never Sets opens in limited release on August 28 and wide on September 4.
The post The Sun Never Sets Review: Joe Swanberg’s Return Is Stuck in a Rut first appeared on The Film Stage.
from The Film Stage https://ift.tt/iqB3m98
0 Comments