'ALLEN SUNSHINE' REVIEW: A Gentle Drama Set on the Lakes [4/5]
A Recording Artist and His Great Dane Outrun Grief in Canadian Cottage Country
[Rating 4/5] - dir. Harley Chamandy - 2024 - Canada - 14A - 1h 20m - Drama
I’ve spent many a summer in woods and on lakes exactly like these — possibly actually these. I’ll allow myself that.
The quieter the film, the more you the viewer must speak to it. Bring yourself to it, and like a good therapy session you come away with a better understanding of yourself — and at that point the film itself is instrumental yet also somehow feels incidental. Evidence of how great the result is of an emotional affair between audience and film.
Allen Sunshine is a star pupil in this school of narrative feature films.
A successful musician loses his wife to suicide, seeks privacy for proper grieving in a lake-side cottage, and eventually meets two young boys, whose resonant youth may have the ability to re-awaken the purpose for life he lost.
Director Harley Chamandy is content to create art that operates at a distance. There isn’t quite Terrence Malick-level fluidity to the plot or the film’s style, but Allen Sunhine does possess a peaceful, humanist, searching quality reminiscent of the filmmaker’s work. Credit to the actors (Vincent Leclerc, Catherine Souffront, Liam Quiring-Nkindi, Miles Phoenix Foley) for performing in kind. This is a cast right in sync with its director and his vision.
It won’t be for everyone, but those with a patience for emotionally driven cinema and a soft spot for nature are gonna be all over this. To this Canadian critic, everything in Allen Sunshine looks like poetry against Ontario’s lakes.
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P.S. The film length is exactly what’s called for. Nice.
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‘Allen Sunshine’ is out now.
Selected Movie Quote: “Thanks for wanting to hangout with us.”
[Rating 4/5] - dir. Harley Chamandy - 2024 - Canada - 14A - 1h 20m - Drama