Who Loves the Sun

IMPLICIT SPOILERS

Who Loves the Sun is a small personal dramedy about five people isolated in a rural cabin during a pleasant Canadian summer. The exquisite beauty of the setting contrasts to the pain of the characters.

Will has mysteriously reappeared in the small town after an unexplained five year absence during which nobody heard from him. He drifts into the house of his former best friend's parents, but he is uncommunicative, so the middle aged couple call up their son in New York and then call the wandering man's ex-wife, both of whom make their way to the cabin for a reunion.

Family secrets start to spill out like beer from a power tap. The long-lost Will left town when he caught his best friend and his wife doing the deed. He's angry, but not as angry as the wife, who genuinely loved him, but also had deep feelings for the best friend. Will left without trying to work things out, and refused to communicate with anyone. They had, more or less given him up for dead.

Will makes such a complete ass of himself for two days that his friend's middle-aged dad finally calls him aside and gives him a lecture, which includes a revelation that he also caught his wife with another man when they were first married, and somehow he managed to survive without running away or making everyone around him miserable. This shared bit of intimacy, sworn to secrecy, is supposed to reach out to Will, but instead triggers a chain of further revelations about the result of that affair so long ago, all of which have great relevance to the current enmity between the former best friends.

The film sort of loses its momentum under the drag of the many, many secrets and correlations to the distant past. At first it seems that the three members of the love triangle just have to try to sort everything out, forgive, and move on appropriately, and that would have been enough story for a small, independent film, especially given the natural dialogue, the credible characters, and the fine technical values of the film. The scriptwriter didn't have the good sense to stay with his central premise, but wandered into enough "organ chord" revelations to fill an entire year of Days of our Lives. Without revealing the specifics, let it suffice to say that Darth Vader is the father of all five characters.

By the end of the movie, however, I was willing to forgive the script's excesses. The mistakes it makes are overcome by its strengths, especially by the fact that we always seem to be watching real people talking about things that really happened. They sometimes speak seriously, sometimes hesitantly, sometimes comically, sometimes bitterly, and sometimes sentimentally, as the characters go through the inevitable cycle of avoidance, confrontation and forgiveness. While some of the plot's coincidences seem forced, they are all tied together remarkably well in a nifty little script and the unlikely secrets, once revealed, seem appropriate to the characters. The characters themselves are likeable enough once they let down their hair, but are not instantly likeable, and possess numerous quirks and unpleasant aspects to their personalities. As do we all. The script uses no short-cuts to coax our identification with the characters. They have to earn our empathy, as they have to earn one another's. The film also redeems its plot contrivances with a completely uncontrived ending in which situations resolve themselves, or fail to, as they would if they happened to real people. In other words, this quiet little film is good in enough ways to earn a bit of dramatic license.

It's not even the slightest bit "hip" and it's not a film for action lovers. I suppose it will play best with audiences over 30 and with females. It's just five people wandering around a cabin for a few days and talking about their feelings. It is, however, an excellent example of how a good movie can be created from virtually no budget, provided that the script is smart and the setting requires few characters, no explosions and no special effects. It is a film which stays with it s capabilities, and succeeds at what it tries to do.

Solid C. Nice indy offering from Canada. 6.2 at IMDb, which is reasonable. Not a very commercial film, but that doesn't mean it isn't good.

Here's a film clip of Molly Parker (two scenes).  Samples to the right.

 

EuroTrip

Another teen comedy.

Tereza Brettschweiderova & Kristyna Simova topless as they do an Orange Juice commercial.

Michelle Trachtenberg is the lead actress, no nudity but she is cute.

Molly Schade bares the boobs in the pool.

Jessica Boehrs is also topless.

Cuéntame

Here is Spanish actress Irene Visedo, from the hit Spanish TV Series, "Cuéntame", which is something like "The Wonder Years." Irene plays a part similar to Olivia D'Abo's character on the North American series.

Some people may remember Irene from the excellent movie "The Devil's Backbone" that was directed by Guillermo del Toro.

 

Irene Visedo