|
 |
|
Sunshine State
***
Cinema Releases - July 26, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 12. USA.
141 minutes. Written and directed by John Sayles. Starring Angela Bassett,
Edie Falco, James McDaniel, Ralph Waite, Richard Edson, Miguel Ferrer, Timothy
Hutton, Mary Steenburgen, Jane Alexander, Marc Blucas, Gordon Clapp, Alan
King.
"Sunshine State" is not the first
movie ever made about a small community of folks pitted against greedy developers
from the big city. The director, John Sayles, himself touched upon the topic
in "City of Hope" (1991). But being a Sayles film, this has a way of looking
at things with more patience and maturity than a plot summary might lead
us to expect.
Sayles, whose film is set on an area of the Florida
coast with property prices that are unexpectedly rising, provokes questions
through action, not speechmaking. And they really are questions, demanding
from us in their complexity, rather than statements we're all supposed to
agree with and feel self-righteous about. One character wonders whether black
communities have lost something in the post-civil rights era; blacks used
to be self-sufficient, he muses, and ran businesses for each other, but now
corporate America will happily take anyone's money, and nobody has taken
a step back to find a solution to the soullessness of it all.
Another character realises that her refusal to
sell to developers may somehow do more harm to the small business community,
and to her own life, than good. As more landowners give up their properties,
it becomes clear that they may not have much choice in the matter, and may
even be doing the right thing. We spend time with a development worker played
by Timothy Hutton, who is revealed to be not such a bad guy, and who sees
himself as trying to shape and maintain natural beauty rather than steamroll
over territory because of boardroom plans. And a cute little twist suggests
that perhaps the irrefutable presence of history and the surprises of good
fortune may end up having more effect than activism in foiling the tide of
big business dominance.
Sayles casts actors with fascinating faces, exuding
life and experience rather than symbolism. Bill Cobbs plays a local doctor,
a man respected by his neighbours, who likes to amble down the road and tell
old stories as much as he likes to make rousing speeches about principle.
The character is an archetype, but fun to watch. Edie Falco owns an ailing
town diner; she busts her back to run it and doesn't know why. She has a
sexuality about her that's cloaked by weariness, and she seems like she'd
be better off getting away and sorting her personal needs out than going
through the obligatory motions of sticking up for the family business. Tom
Wright, a coulda-been football star who injured his leg a few decades back,
sounds like he's doing a personal appearance no matter how intimate a given
conversation may be, and we suspect he must be up to something insincere.
There are too many personal dramas going on at once for me to summarise;
the rest of the large cast includes such wonderful performers as Angela Bassett,
Richard Edson, Mary Steenburgen, Jane Alexander and Alan King.
"Sunshine State" is somewhat slow moving, and
if I had a copy of the film at hand I could dissect at length how it feels
like a lesser version of Sayles's great "Lone Star" (1996). Of course, I
would also require the inclination, and I doubt I'm going to summon that
any time soon. Even though the film feels familiar, it remains much better
than most of the stuff I see. Its characters talk intelligently and are seen
in filmmaking of patience and detail. Sayles creates a world here, populates
it with people and problems, and photographs it with a fascination that engulfs
us.
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
2002 Reviews
(alphabetical)
2002 Reviews (by star
rating)
Archive of all cinema reviews
(alphabetical)
Review Archive
Index
UK
Critic main page
|
|
![[Image]](http://www.ukcritic.com/posbanr2.gif)