SUNKISS is a kind of curate’s egg for me. The film is shining calling card for writer director Dice Ross who has made a film that is very much alive. It’s a film that heralds the arrival of great cinematic voice. The problem is that the short form nature of the telling doesn’t quite work.
The film is the story of two teenage girls who are very close. Toward the end of the day they are picked up by two older men.
Told with a skill and an assured hand that allows the flashy turns to seem like they are part of the story and not merely showing off. Dice Ross directorial choices are magnificent. I can’t wait to see what she does with a feature. She will almost certainly shake the pillars of cinematic heaven.
My problem is that I’m not certain that the flow of the story works the way it should. We go from a halcyon time between the girls to the meeting of the guys and the film ending as things go dark. The pieces are fine, the problem is that they don’t fully link up. The ending should be a punch, and while it implies things it doesn’t fully connect. I wasn’t sure why we are being told the film this way, or more to the point why it’s structured this way and ends here. I’m left wondering why these pieces are being shown and not others. It’s not that there isn’t anything bad, more that where the end comes I’m not certain what I’m supposed to be feeling. Leaving it where it does makes me wanting to know more-since there is so much more to say. Yes it would work better in a feature where we get more information on either side.
My quibbles about the story aside this is a film you’ll want to see, simply because what Dice Rose does is so monumental that you’ll want to get in on the ground floor of a great career.
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