X
- 2022
- R
- Bleecker Street Media
- 1 h 22 m
- 2022
- R
- Bleecker Street Media
- 1 h 22 m
Summary Neil and Alice Bennett (Tim Roth, Charlotte Gainsbourg) are the core of a wealthy family on vacation in Mexico with younger members Colin and Alexa (Samuel Bottomley, Albertine Kotting McMillan) until a distant emergency cuts their trip short. When one relative disrupts the family’s tight-knit order, simmering tensions rise to the fore.
- 2022
- R
- Bleecker Street Media
- 1 h 22 m
- 2022
- R
- Bleecker Street Media
- 1 h 22 m
Sundown
70
6.6
Where to Watch
Summary Neil and Alice Bennett (Tim Roth, Charlotte Gainsbourg) are the core of a wealthy family on vacation in Mexico with younger members Colin and Alexa (Samuel Bottomley, Albertine Kotting McMillan) until a distant emergency cuts their trip short. When one relative disrupts the family’s tight-knit order, simmering tensions rise to the fore.
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 27 Critic Reviews
70
78% Positive
21 Reviews
21 Reviews
22% Mixed
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 27 Critic Reviews
70
78% Positive
21 Reviews
21 Reviews
22% Mixed
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
It’s an inward-looking film that seems to be saying something about life. Whatever it’s saying — and it’s not clear that it’s saying anything specific — it connects. It’s not just another good movie. Somehow, it all adds up as something more important.
Like the master big screen poker player than he is, Roth never ever shows his cards.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 19 User Ratings
6.6
63% Positive
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
37% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 19 User Ratings
6.6
63% Positive
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
37% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
This slow-burn thriller sees a man (Tim Roth) enjoying a vacation in Acapulco, Mexico with his sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her two children until she receives a devastating phone call that sets into motion a plan of his to get even with her and her family business financially. While there's not a whole lot in the way of tension here, this is compensated with very calculated and deliberate performances from both Roth and Gainsbourg, as well as a general lack of knowledge or information on what's going to happen next. Context is minimal and only hinted at throughout, further creating a sense of uncertainty, but this may also prove frustrating for some viewers. And at a brisk and sleek hour and twenty-three minutes, it also felt as though it ended a little soon and abruptly. But overall, a persistent sense of dread, along with fine performances from Roth and Gainsbourg keep this film afloat and intriguing enough while it lasts.
Report
Sundown – A Slow Burn While not a dedicated fan of Tim Roth, he acquits himself rather well in the serious but ambiguous role of a ‘tourist’ in Acapulco, behaving very strangely. But, is it ever really right for a writer/director (Michel Franco) to deliberately keep vital details about their story and its characters from the audience - in order to make the main theme and situations more difficult to fathom? This is one of those cases where we are forced to wonder what’s driving the central characters - while being kept out of the vital loop to understand their motivations and actions. At times this device can add a mysterious element to certain stories but this one is just too meanderingly bland to qualify as a mystery per se. Still, the makers expect us to have the patience to stay with it long enough to fill in the missing pieces. Too many people read about the movies they choose to see before watching, then think they are superior for ‘working it out’, but for others who like to go in cold and let the story unfold in its own time, it’s another matter. Minimalist works such as this require more detail to allow us to connect the more outlandish sections (and there are several here) to where the story is heading. While at times interesting and rather tragic, it’s just as well this has a shortish runtime as any more would have killed it entirely. The ending doesn’t fully deliver a complete understanding of the many peculiar prior actions, and judging from the bulk of reviews, this may not be adequate closure for many to accept, and understandably so.
Report
There are moments when, like the gaudy lights of Acapulco, Sundown flickers into something rather special when seen from the right angle, in the right mood: a film about a goodbye to life which is also a film about a kind of afterlife.
Its intensity burns like the sun which makes Neil’s skin blister, peeling off a layer we hope might reveal more. Franco is scratching away at the surface, too, making the sort of movie you come away from with questions, wondering if you’d blinked and missed something.
The result is an introspective character study caught against a gorgeous yet volatile backdrop. While I personally believe the payoff is worth the journey, however, I wouldn’t begrudge others for feeling as though they’ve been jerked around.
Sundown has more substance, and a more intriguing premise, than most of Franco’s proudly sadistic work. But it still amounts to just a lot of artfully composed bleakness.
As a character study of a man with good reason to wean himself off the very basic human instinct of hope and teach himself, even at some personal cost, to care for no one and nothing, Sundown gains texture from its stark setting in a seaside playground stained with blood. But of all the director’s films to date, this might be the most airless.
In his last film, Michel Franco was accused in his own country of being classist, and instead of giving an elaborated response his first instinct was to react offended. So it's hilarious to see that in his new film one of his themes is that poverty provokes an unpleasant and violent response in those who suffer from it. One of the things he was accused of exploiting after the release of New Order. But as tends to happen with Franco, he prefers to use bait with his viewers, trying to drag out a narrative without a clear context, until it gets to the point where you can't escape tedium when he doesn't really provide anything substantial for his main character. Therefore the viewer is left fully aware that there's something being withheld in terms of information in the narrative, however by the point the twist gets cleared, I was already quite uninterested, and its closure only reaffirms to me why I think Franco is such an overrated director, and boy do I hate saying that word.
Report
Michel Franco is one of those directors for whom anything that comes to his mind will interest European producers and distributors. "Sundown" looks like the first draft of something that, perhaps, could have potential with more meat, but from this version, there is hardly anything to be salvaged. Tim Roth (who appears to be Franco's cheerleader) just hangs around and sunbathes. It's not until three minutes before the movie ends that the reason for his apparent nihilism is finally revealed. But frankly, at that point, it's no longer relevant. The character, far from being intriguing, is just impenetrable. The script pretends that we empathize with someone in a second, but it seems like a trap to me, almost like in "Chronic," which is practically the same as this one, although with another argument. And then there is the pseudo-commentary about the violence in Acapulco, which could not have been more superficial; I can already imagine Europeans in shock seeing those images and then getting up to applaud at a festival in which he participated. I think Franco should better focus on his role as a producer since several of the works in which he has been involved are worth more than the ones he has done.
Report
Production Company
Common Ground Pictures,
Eficine,
Film i Väst,
Luxbox,
Teorema
Release Date Jan 28, 2022
Duration 1 h 22 m
Rating R
Genres
Awards
El Gouna Film Festival
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
PRIX AFC (AFC PRIZES)
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Venice Film Festival
• 1 Nomination
