The Sunlight Night movie review: Jenny Slate shines in this tale about unlearning and self-actualisation

3/5

Story: As Frances moves to North Norway to escape her shitstorm of a life in New York, she realises her perspective on art has probably been too superfluous till now. The quietude of the scenic locales of Lofoten islands almost encapsulates her rebirth as an artist who finally finds her own voice.

“Did I get where I needed to go?”

David Wnendt’s The Sunlit Night is a beautiful journey that encapsulates this question completely. The film places scenarios and asks viewers to delve into the recesses of their minds and enquire whether they (along with the film’s proverbial heroine) have actually made it. Frances (played by the inimitable Jenny Slate) is a budding artist whose works evoke no inspiration. The Sunlit Night’s opening sequence delves into one of Frances’ works and how three art critics bludgeon her piece mercilessly. Her work is called out for being pretentious and sans any inspiration, with one pompously declaring, “it (Frances’ painting) almost makes me angry.”

But Frances is resilient in the face of vitriol, and simply laughs nervously after the harrowing session ends. The series of unfortunate events continues as she promptly undergoes a breakup, learns of her younger sister’s engagement and discovers her parents Levi (played by David Paymer) and Mirela (played by Jessica Hecht) will soon undergo a divorce. After a harrowing experience of working in a dimly lit, congested single-room studio with her ever-whining father, Frances jumps at the offer of assisting a has-been Norwegian artist Nils (played by Fridtjov Såheim). The project is quite odd though – painting a barn, solely in shades of yellow, in the remote northern islands of Lofoten.

It is in this godforsaken place that Frances begins her journey of unlearning. Her bougie New York City notions of ‘good’ art and what entails success are completely upended after brief-but-impactful associations with the citizens of these magically picturesque islands. Nils and Frances occupy two ends of the spectrum – while one battles with rejection at the beginning of her career, the other is burdened with dealing with it as an established name; while one struggles to find her own artistic voice, the other is desperate for his to be heard; while one is still hopeful of a world with love and positive insights, the other is just a cantankerous soul, trying to get by each day with the help of his trusted beer can and a passion for art, but only the kind he believes in. Yet, both are at a crossroads of life, trying to navigate their way into relevance.

Rebecca Dinerstein’s script, one that she adapted from her own novel, speaks true to the milieu of The Sunlit Night. Its breezy casualness entices viewers into a world of silences that speak louder than words. The characters never resort to pedantic high-handedness to have epiphanies. Their revelations are as subtle and deeply impactful as the unassuming and unblemished beauty of the Lofoten landscape.

This almost-fantastical world, with its oddball inhabitants and their hunger for love and attention (in whatever form please them) helps develop a convincing narrative on how artforms can be really effective adhesives for souls. Hador (played by Zach Galifianakis) is a Cincinnati-based resident who has chosen to inhabit these faraway lands a glorified tour guide and prefers everyone refer to him by his character name “The Chief”; or the angel-faced grocery store worker who exudes this self-assured yet slightly world-weary aura of a know it all. She, in fact, becomes Frances’ muse and unwittingly holds the crux of the narratively in her hands when she says “My mother used to say, ‘Know who you are and then fuck it’.”

The Sunlit Night is anything but one-dimensional. It’s mostly about disjointed people, working hard towards convincing themselves that their conviction stands for some value in the ever-transient rigmarole of things. Much like the unending Norwegian Sun, the film speaks of men and women who have refused to give up or give in.