![]() ![]() As for family life, her alcoholic mother (a blowzy Tess Harper of " Tender Mercies" fame) gets by as a caretaker for a flock of underfed foster kids in a ramshackle rental home. He lives on his disability checks along with whatever chump change he makes from fixing electronics-that is, when he isn't drowning his sorrows in cheap booze along with his fellow motel outcasts.Īt the store, Melissa must contend with both a jerk of a boss who harasses her sexually as well as a loony pill-pusher ex-boyfriend ( Norman Reedus, giving off scary Ray Liotta-type vibes) who regularly stalks her there. Meanwhile, ex-construction laborer Richie gets around in a wheelchair, the result of an accident. Inside, you can practically smell the sweat, tropical mold and stale cigarette fumes in the dumpy motel room that serves as Melissa and Richie's home base as she dresses in the dark for her job at a rundown convenience store (the Sunlight Jr. ![]() Outside, the handful of palm trees that interrupt the endless stretches of asphalt and concrete surfaces droop sadly and even the few exotic birds that venture by seem like they are asking for spare change. There is the public transportation that never comes, the worry that a sudden illness will lead to an exorbitant emergency-room bill and the depressing dinginess of a dark bunker of a bar when the door opens and the sun streaks in briefly. This hard slice of reality, however, is more a Styrofoam takeaway-container drama. Neither do the characters.Filmmaker Laurie Collyer ("Sherrybaby") uses the rocky romance as a bait-and-switch tactic for her unvarnished depiction of a burgeoning underclass that certain politicians-the ones who rail against raising the minimum wage while supporting cuts in school meal programs and food stamps-would dismiss as moochers depending on government-sponsored handouts.īack in the '50s and '60s, British cinema specialized in a brand of social realism known as kitchen-sink dramas that focused on marginalized blue-collar types. ![]() Where do they go? The movie doesn't pretend to know the answer. Thus, "Sunlight Jr." concludes with a scene of genuine tenderness, but also genuine dread. The trajectory of the film is "predictable", except that it's predictable to the characters too, and their journey becomes about recognizing its own end. Sure, sure, Richie relentlessly promises that he will take care of her, but this is empty rhetoric with passionate delivery. When you cook on a hot plate and fish expired peanut butter out of the trash, how can you afford emergency room visits?Īnd that ultimately becomes the characters' struggle within each of themselves - not only if it's feasible for them to raise a child, but is it responsible? In fact, we see Melissa's mother raising (neglecting) a gaggle of foster kids, and wonder if the same fate awaits her daughter. Inevitably Melissa becomes pregnant, and when she rushes to the hospital in a scary emergency, though it turns out to be false alarm, Richie conveys concern for his wife but also disbelief at her fiscal irresponsibility. ![]() They argue, but the arguments are born of realistically difficult situations and all the fear they entail. Mascis's score is matched by Watts and Dillon, who for all the drudgery they are made to endure, still convince as a couple in love, carnally and emotionally, even if their emotions might not reach enlightened intellectual plains. It is sorrowful only in moments, mostly choosing for aural optimism, even in situations that appear less than optimistic. Mascis, the frontman of Dinosaur Jr., and Collyer chooses to serve the majority of her film with Mascis's music for accompaniment. This might make it sound as if "Sunlight Jr." is another indie film intent on simmering the viewer in the characters' crushing depression as a means to illustrate the unreachable nature of the so-called American Dream for so many, and that is there, but then listen closely to the soundtrack. They can hardly afford gas for the car, so much so that Richie covertly wheels out in the middle of the night to siphon some from a neighboring car. These are people who talk in lax Dollar Store cliches - "Don't make a federal case out of it." They live in a grimy one room motel, the sweat of humidity imbued in the sheets on the bed. These are not people who talk in absolutes. He makes vague references to a prior life of good money in construction, but makes just as vague a reference to spending it all away. There seems to be little sunlight in the lives of Melissa (Watts) and her boyfriend Richie (Matt Dillon), disabled and bound to a wheelchair. The title, of course, is meant to be ironic. ![]()
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