Fayza A. Elmostehi and Caroline Gallay face off in a Britney Spears diva battle.
Photo by Carolina Astrain
Editor's note: In this regular series, CultureMap staffers, contributors and selected experts audio debate issues in the city.
When the subject is Britney Spears, the battle lines are quickly drawn. When Britney came up in one of our regular editorial meetings (it's not all abstract art at CultureMap), columnist Caroline Gallay and social media editor Fayza A. Elmostehi almost immediately started squaring off on whether Britney is the original late 1990s pop princess (Caroline's view) or just a largely talentless creation of handlers and stage parents (Fayza's opinion).
With Britney back in the news more than ever (see the Glee episode, the new neck tattoos, her latest comeback), the debate quickly turned into a Culture War where no one's feelings were spared — especially Britney's.
Fayza argues that Britney is "a horrible role model, the kind of woman who sets back the women's movement by 20 years" and notes how Britney "started taking her clothes off" once she began making her own decisions. Caroline counters that Britney is "a Madonna" type musical figure and clearly a shrewd businesswoman.
Listen to the whole debate and tell us whose side you're on. Are you suffering from "Brit Lash" like Fayza or are you sophisticated and secure enough to acknowledge that Britney's songs can put you in a good mood a la Caroline? There's no straddling the fence in this Culture War.
Even if that's something Britney would do in a video.
The movies of writer/director Joe Swanberg have always been an acquired taste, as he prefers to give his actors a loose framework of a story and let them improvise most of their lines to give the films a more natural feel. Sometimes that approach can yield great results, and sometimes — as in The Sun Never Sets — it can result in addled and maddening storytelling.
Wendy (Dakota Fanning) is in her early 30s and at a crossroads in her life. When a friend announces she’s pregnant, she starts to re-evaluate what she wants, including her two-year relationship with the older Jack (Jake Johnson). Although they love each other, their disagreements on having more children and extracurricular activities call their long-term viability into question.
Jack, not wanting Wendy to settle, encourages her to explore her options where they live — Anchorage, Alaska — telling her he’ll be waiting should she strike out. What he doesn’t expect is that Wendy’s ex-boyfriend, Chuck (Cory Michael Smith), has returned to the city, giving her an attractive alternative. The three engage in a love triangle that proves frustrating and confusing for both the participants and the viewers.
What works best about the film is its location in Alaska, which rarely gets showcased in movies, and even more rarely in the way it is here. The story takes place in warmer months, and Swanberg gives his characters multiple opportunities to be outside, showing off Anchorage’s harbor, surrounding mountains, and seemingly vibrant city life. The subtle but effective way Swanberg frames various scenes makes the landscape enormously appealing.
It’s too bad, then, that the story never measures up to its surroundings. Too often Fanning, Johnson, Smith, and others seem to be grasping for their next line, unsure of what they want their character to do or say next. That lets their scenes mimic real conversations, but you might not realize how much you want scripted dialogue until you see actors trying to come up with their own in the moment.
The larger issue is that there’s no consistency from scene to scene about where the plot is heading. The characters of Wendy, Jack, and Chuck are extremely wishy-washy about their desires, with each of them vacillating back-and-forth in just how much they want to be with each other. Depending on your experience, this may or may not be true to life, but watching it is excruciating and not enjoyable or romantic in the slightest.
As actors, Fanning, Johnson, and Smith are talented and interesting, with each capable of connecting with viewers in different ways. But working in improvisation is a different beast, and only Johnson — who has worked with Swanberg multiple times — seems truly at home. A few others, like Debby Ryan and Anna Konkle, do well in the format and maybe deserved bigger parts.
Swanberg has proven in the past that his method of filmmaking can be insightful and entertaining, but that is not the case here. In The Sun Never Sets, his hands-off approach is a detriment to the flow of the film and the story as a whole, resulting in an experience that is far from what most viewers will want to go through.
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The Sun Never Sets is now playing in select theaters.
