Sunny Dancer
There could be a quote here featuring any of the cancer jokes from this movie, but without the context of the film, it would sound absolutely horrible.
Sunny Dancer tells the story of seventeen-year-old Ivy, who had leukemia but has been successfully in remission for ten months. Her parents, trying to help her get back to life and surround her with other kids her age, manage to send her to CRF Camp, where kids with cancer or in remission spend time together. Ivy is your typical rebellious teenager who is annoyed by everything, basically like any teenager going through puberty, except she’s also a teenager who has survived such a horrible disease. But after meeting other people at the camp, she slowly starts opening up and getting attached to them, realizing that they’re just kids like her. This isn’t some pitiful trip where everyone is sad and suffering. Against the backdrop of all the fun teenage mischief, there’s also first love, heartfelt conversations, and even the first attempts to actually talk to a therapist. However, before her fun trip comes to an end, several different stories lead to her leaving the camp with a pretty heavy heart.
If you think about it, the last time we really talked about a teenage or young adult coming-of-age story involving teenagers with cancer was probably The Fault in Our Stars, which came out twelve years ago. So trying to bring this subject back into the modern conversational world, especially as a relatively big but absolutely indie project, is a pretty strong statement, and something I really want to praise George Jaques for.
This is a movie where we don’t see a single hospital scene. It is, essentially, a movie about teenagers, just like any other teenagers, dealing with hate and love, fights and breakups, first sex, and thoughts about the future. But we’re always reminded that, unfortunately, not everyone is guaranteed to have that future at all. None of them knows when someone’s disease might come back, who might relapse, or what’s waiting for them next.
It’s a pretty sunny, very warm story. And despite the fact that the movie constantly tries to convince everyone that this isn’t the typical inspirational media type, it actually ends up being exactly that. Quite often, Sunny Dancer felt very naive and sometimes juggled something between Disney and, well, maybe a slightly more radical-for-its-time CW show. Something tells me that this has a lot to do with the fact that the director, who also wrote the script himself, is still a very young filmmaker, with only short films and one feature behind him. Maybe that’s why it lacks something that really grabs you by the neck.
The movie is trying to position itself as knowing what kids who, unfortunately, are familiar with all this shit are going through, and puts itself on the same level as them. But there are quite a few How Do You Do, Fellow Kids moments here that clearly weren’t intentional. Because when those moments are intentional, you will definitely notice them. Very heartfelt, sometimes melodramatic, and sometimes genuinely funny, amusing and full-of-life scenes are periodically replaced by pretty uneven and questionable ones. And, of course, these emotional rollercoasters don’t always work in the movie’s favor.
What really works here, and in many ways saves all the unevenness of the script, is a really great cast, who carry this difficult story with such ease, deliver all the very dark jokes, and at least occasionally manage to show these characters as layered people.
It’s a cast led by Bella Ramsey. They were genuinely great here, showing a really impressive acting range, just like the rest of the young cast. It was also really great to see Jessica Gunning and James Norton as the parents. Honestly, I would have loved to see more of their story on screen, because they felt like very real, pretty cool parents dealing with this kind of story and this kind of child. They joke on equal terms, talk about difficult subjects in a very easy and straightforward way, and their short appearances still do a great job of brightening up the movie.
And I can’t not mention the absolutely fantastic soundtrack, featuring Scissor Sisters, Olivia Dean, CMAT and The xx. In that department, everything is just great.
The only major thing that becomes a problem for the movie is the director’s desire to throw in a plot twist at the end, which I think was absolutely unnecessary. And the most annoying part is that 500 Miles did exactly the same plot twist earlier this year and did it much better.
Still, I think a movie that portrays teenagers who have survived or are living with cancer as lively, fun and completely normal people — which is exactly what they are — will always be an important, necessary and potentially useful thing to make.
No Rating / 10
