Susan Granger’s review of “Sunlight Jr.” (Samuel Goldwyn Films)
Occasionally there are films that are so unrelentingly bleak and grim that you wonder why they were made in the first place; this is one of them.
Living in a shabby motel in working-class, central Florida, Melissa (Naomi Watts) is a cashier at the convenience store that gives the movie its title. She oves Richie (Matt Dillon), a former TV repairman who has been confined to a wheelchair since a motorcycle accident left his legs paralyzed. While they barely subsist on her minimum-wage paycheck and his meagre disability benefits, they relish their frequent sexual interludes, along with drinking whiskey and smoking cigarettes.
Among their many problems, Melissa’s menacing ex-boyfriend, Justin (Norman Reedus), still stalks her. She can’t avoid him entirely because he’s an intimidating landlord to her alcoholic mother (Tess Harper), whose bedbug-infested house is overflowing with foster children. Adding to her angst, Melissa discovers she’s pregnant; while they’d love to get married and have a baby, they certainly cannot afford to support one. More complications arise when Melissa’s abusive, bullying boss, Edwin (Antoni Corone), tells her she has to take the ‘graveyard shift,’ risking rape and robbery. Pressures continue to mount as they get evicted and their situation grows more and more intolerable.
Inspired by Barbara Ehrenreich’s book “Nickel and Dimed,” which chronicled America’s working-class poor, it’s written and directed by Laurie Collyer (“Sherrybaby”). According to the production notes, Ms. Collyer is attempting to evoke what she calls “the shattered American dream.” Supporting
her assertions, a recent study revealed that one-in-six Americans now live in
poverty.
Unfortunately, two-time Oscar nominee Naomi Watts (“The Impossible,” “21 Grams”) is far too regal and refined to be even remotely convincing as having lived very long in this bleak cycle of scarcity and, while Oscar-nominee Matt Dillon (“Crash”) nails Richie’s frustration and rage, he too seems way out of his element.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Sunlight Jr.” is a sobering, depressing, tedious 3, filled with far too much unresolved adversity and overwhelming despair to be recommended as ‘entertainment.’
