Sunlight is a hilariously dark comedy that uses humour and self-awareness to navigate issues of identity, mental health, and family dysfunction.
Director: Nina Conti
Genre: Dark Comedy
Run Time: 96′
Edinburgh Premiere: August 17, 2024
Release Date: TBA
Sunlight opens with a bang: a middle-aged man named Roy (Shenoah Allen), depressed in his hotel room, getting ready to kill himself. It’s a dark image that immediately sets the scene for an equally dark story – but when the following scene sees Roy wake up in his motorhome with a giant monkey, all of those expectations are thrown out the window.
What follows is a surprisingly tender and emotional tale of Roy’s friendship with the woman beneath the monkey suit, a now-homeless woman named Jane (Nina Conti) who struggles to separate her true identity from the suit she wears.
The first thing to mention about Sunlight is its unstoppable sense of humour. There’s a tangent of lighthearted comedy that runs through even the most sombre and depressing scenes in the film, using the hilarious dynamic between these actors to drive the story forward and prevent it from ever becoming too overwhelming. Once the story gets going, it’s one laugh-out-loud moment after another, as Roy and Jane’s journey gets more ridiculous and incredible with every step. While Jane just wants to visit Colorado and start a new life for herself, Roy has some errands to run – namely, digging up his deceased father and stealing his valuable watch.
Sunlight is essentially the product of one very talented writer throwing all of her jokes and ideas at the wall and hoping that they stick. There are jokes in here that must’ve sounded ridiculous on paper, but it’s Conti’s dedication to both acting and directing that makes everything come together so fluently. She understands that her character isn’t just a laughing stock – yes, she’s a woman who lives her life in a monkey costume, but there’s a deeper level to her character that Conti explores in order to explain why. And by making the audience implicit in the joke, by making us laugh for the majority of the story, the film’s message of not judging people before hearing their story hits even more strongly.
Sunlight’s biggest drawback is the pacing and narrative progression: sometimes it feels like the story is speeding through certain moments in order to maintain its breezy pace, getting the ‘serious’ moments done quickly, but it’s actually these moments that are the most interesting. The comedy is great, and more importantly consistent, but it requires that balance of sincerity for Jane’s story to really land emotionally – and Sunlight doesn’t always get there. There are glimpses of more mature storytelling, primarily through the way Roy and Jane’s relationship evolves in complex and unpredictable ways, but there’s a final push that’s missing to make Sunlight truly great.
But purely as a laugh-per-minute road trip movie, it’s hard to imagine a more effective script than Sunlight’s. The jokes are well-considered and never cheap, relying on the unique chemistry and fine-tuned performances to make the audience laugh rather than all the common tropes of comedy movies. Shenoah Allen finely balances the line between the depressed, cynical character that Roy is at the beginning, and the enriched, more purposeful figure that he eventually becomes. Conti’s performance is much more physical and unrestrained, as she’s acting from within the monkey suit and her face is rarely on-screen – but that doesn’t stop her from conveying all of her emotions.
Overall, Sunlight is a really strong outing at this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival. The movie represents a genre that’s not often seen today: a comedy that manages to incorporate elements of drama and tragedy without forgetting to be a comedy. It’s one of the most joke-rich films of the year, and while the story would definitely benefit from a lengthened run time or maybe some extra characters, it’s almost impossible to have an unpleasant time with this movie.
Sunlight was screened at the Edinburgh Film Festival on August 17, 2024.
