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 between the present and 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.
Who Loves the Sun is not even the slightest bit "hip" and it's
absolutely not a film for action lovers.
I suppose it will play best with female and older males. 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 within
its capabilities, and thus succeeds at what it tries to do.
