You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t been on a vacation that they wished would last forever. After all, going back to the stresses and responsibilities of the real world — filled with household bills to pay and work emails to read — can be a real buzzkill when you’ve been living footloose and fancy-free for days upon days. But how many of us have actually acted on those impulses and refused to come home? How many of us have asked “why can’t this last forever?” and then answered ourselves with “actually, maybe it can?”
Such is the conundrum presented by Sundown, the latest feature from provocative Mexican filmmaker Michel Franco (After Lucia, New Order). Franco’s films are often preoccupied with the trials and tribulations of the upper classes; this is a theme that continues in Sundown, the story of a man who is willing to throw away a life of outrageous privilege in order to live out his days on a Mexican beach. Featuring a wonderfully understated performance from Tim Roth (who previously appeared in Franco’s Chronic) the film packs a surprising number of twists into a succinct 83 minutes, continuously forcing the audience to reevaluate all of our assumptions about this man and his unconventional (and often unsympathetic) choices.
Neil at the Beach
Neil (Roth) is on vacation in a luxury resort in Acapulco with his family: Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and twenty-somethings Colin (Samuel Bottomley) and Alexa (Albertine Kotting McMillan). Their lazy days of drinking delicious c*cktails poolside are abruptly interrupted, however, by a phone call with the news of a death in the family. As Alice devolves into hysterics, it seems that the calm, collected Neil will be the one to ensure that the family gets back to London to take care of the necessary arrangements without too much trouble. However, upon arrival at the airport, Neil announces that he has forgotten his passport and will join his family later after he tracks it down at the hotel.
However, Neil does not return to their fancy hotel but instead catches a cab to a much more economical little place right near the beach. And instead of quickly booking a flight to join his family, he decides to settle down into a chair on the sand and drink buckets of beer in quiet contemplation. When Alice calls, demanding to know when he’ll return, he makes up excuses about waiting for the consulate’s assistance. Eventually, he hides the phone altogether, unwilling to face her increasingly frantic calls. He also falls in love with a beautiful young local named Bernice (Iazua Larios), whose attraction to this middle-aged white man is hard to understand until you remember that he has money.
As the days all start to dissolve together in an alcohol-soaked, sun-drenched haze, it becomes clear that Neil has no intention of returning to his family in England. But it also becomes increasingly clear that Neil’s situation is not as clean-cut as seemingly laid out at the beginning of Sundown. His relationship to Alice and the kids, the origins and extent of his wealth, and other aspects of his life are gradually, albeit somewhat inelegantly, revealed as the film progresses. And while these storytelling gambits don’t always work — one plot twist feels inserted solely for shock value, while another in the film’s final third feels a bit too cliched to be truly believable — Sundown is still effective in the way it forces us to ask ourselves what truly makes life worth living. As we learn more about Neil, so do our opinions of his actions change, both for the better and the worse. Yet one thing remains constant: it’s difficult to judge Neil too much for his decision to embark on a permanent vacation when who knows how many among us would do the same if given the chance (and, you know, the substantial financial resources).
A Bigger Splash
Neil’s quiet new life is occasionally disrupted — by Alice’s phone calls, yes, but also acts of startling, disturbing violence. In one scene, Neil and Bernice are enjoying yet another peaceful afternoon with beers on the beach when two men on a jet ski pull up and shoot someone sitting on the shore, the dark red blood of the victim mixing with the clear, shining water of the sea. Yet apart from the initial shock of the sound of the gunfire, people’s reactions are decidedly muted; one gets the feeling that this is just a part of life in Acapulco, an area known for high levels of gang violence and homicide.
Neil’s decision to essentially retire in such a place is a pretty keen signifier of his immense privilege; of course, after spending time in a luxury resort, closed off to the rest of the world, he would think Acapulco is an easygoing paradise. However, the reality for those who live there is quite different — and that reality ends up hitting Neil far closer to home than he could have ever imagined. Nonetheless, one cannot help but question Franco’s continued insistence on depicting working-class, dark-skinned Mexicans as mostly criminals after eliciting much criticism for doing similarly in New Order. Leaning into these stereotypes is a definite choice, and not a good one.
Even if the script often goes in ill-advised directions, Sundown is an impeccably crafted film; shot on location in Acapulco, it is beautifully photographed by Yves Cape, and the sound design is precise down to the last lapping wave. But the best thing about Sundown is Roth’s performance, which feels like a bit of a bookend to his recent work in Bergman Island, playing yet another man whose inherent selfishness makes him unwilling to see the way his actions are affecting those around him, blind to the ways in which he is blessed. Roth has always been a master at portraying unlikable men, and in both these films, one has to often resist the urge to scream at him. (Fortunately, both Charlotte Gainsbourg and Vicky Krieps do it for us.) Yet as he sits, smiling almost beatifically, in his beach chair, drinking so much Dos Equis that it’s a wonder his blood doesn’t transform into beer, it’s also impossible to truly hate him; his flaws are too human, too recognizable.
Conclusion
If you spend too much time online, as I do, you get the feeling certain people would prefer that characters like Neil in Sundown disappear from the movies altogether due to their inability to be easily categorized as a villain or a hero, but to me, that is what makes these characters so fascinating. No one’s saying you have to be friends with someone like Neil in real life, but wouldn’t you rather watch a film focused on a character that makes you feel a complex array of conflicting emotions than one that makes you feel nothing at all? A film that makes you ask yourself questions more substantial than “when is this going to be over?” That’s why, even with all its flaws (and the lofty task of having to live up to one of the most enigmatic, tension-filled movie trailers I’ve seen in quite some time), I found myself thoroughly enjoying Sundown.
What do you think? Are you familiar with Michel Franco’s previous films? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Sundown is released in the U.S. on January 28, 2022. You can find more international release dates here.
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