Sunshine State

Directed by John Sayles
Written by John Sayles
Starring Angela Bassett, Edie Falco, Timothy Hutton, Bill Cobbs
USA, 2002

C

In Sunshine State, writer-director-editor John Sayles concerns himself with the way geographic and personal histories find ways to infect the present. While one character advises that you can’t live life in the past, everyone in this sun-soaked Floridian setting struggles with the ghosts of the land they hold dear. The main issue Sayles presents is the pall cast by modern cultural and urban development. Speaking for past cases, an activist (Bill Cobbs) laments that the progressive changes of desegregation spelled the death of many African American businesses.

Currently on Plantation Island, the bored custodian of a motel and restaurant (Edie Falco) must decide whether she wants to keep the property that means so much to her father (Ralph Waite), or sell it so that Burger Kings and strip malls can be built in its place. Real estate organizations unabashedly pressure long-time residents to leave their homes. The ambiguities of what we call economic and social progress begin to arise, as well as the vagueness of our conceptions of treasured history and heritage – the roots we hold on to. People cling to memories they value and also to what is only superficially important – heirlooms that gather dust.

Sayles has crafted an ensemble piece with a bulky cast of characters whose lives collide intensely and casually. However, he is a different breed of artist from seemingly similar directors like Robert Altman or Paul Thomas Anderson because his approach is relentlessly conversational. In fact, the characters and the issues they represent are mostly just talk, and purely exposition (this preference for words over action can be linked to the director’s background as a novelist). Sayles has never been one to involve in onscreen histrionics, but the emotional connection we expect at the movies – even at the art house – is nowhere to be found here. The film certainly lacks the centrality of Sayles’ highly acclaimed Lone Star, which pivoted on a biracial romance plot twist. In his latest, Sayles uses visual jokes and plays with humorous methods of framing, but the charm begins to wear off.

How do we access the emotional side of this droning sociological essay? Sunshine State does not harmonize like music, the way Altman’s Nashville and Anderson’s Magnolia do (incidentally, the actual music score is minimal, giving the film its deadening, sometimes self-mocking, weightlessness). But, as in all ensemble dramas, the pleasures lie in the actors. Falco reigns supreme over this particular cast; her wit defies the dullness of the script. Angela Bassett, one of the most thrilling, reliable, and shortchanged actresses of her generation is, yet again, stuck with a cliché unworthy of her. Still, she has the most evocative jawbones in the business.

Sunshine State may be material to ponder over but, because its tone is comatose (even the bright cinematography becomes hopelessly drowsy), it does not build any desire for thought. It allows too much room between itself and the audience; it’s a safe movie you won’t lose your head while watching. The issues are not of the heart but remain stagnant, a bunch of words on paper.

By Andrew Chan [AUGUST 17, 2002; ORGINALLY PRINTED IN THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER]