In Anchorage, Wendy (Dakota Fanning) is caught between a rock and a hard place. The rock is her older boyfriend, Jack (Jake Johnson), a divorced dad who doesn’t want more kids. The hard place is her ex, Chuck (Cory Michael Smith), a sightseeing pilot. Just after Jack insists that Wendy spend the summer as a single woman before they commit to each other for good, Wendy runs into Chuck at a bar.
In “The Sun Never Sets,” from the writer and director Joe Swanberg (“Win It All,” “Drinking Buddies”), the problem facing Wendy is which partner to choose. But the problem facing the audience is that her options are terrible. The suitors seem to love our conflicted heroine, but Chuck is unreliable while Jack can’t divorce his care from condescension. What’s a local gal to do but dither and down hoppy beers?
It’s easy to see traces of the mumblecore movement once synonymous with Swanberg’s name. There’s organic, overlapping dialogue and a devotion to capturing the baggy rhythms of everyday life. This style is appealing, and Swanberg clearly has a handle on the naturalism — and the occasional metaphor, like the flighty Chuck’s field of work — needed to make a low-key movie sing.
Still, the dilemmas the movie imposes on Wendy, like whether to have children and how much to mold herself to a partner, are cliché. It doesn’t help that Swanberg struggles to clarify Wendy’s frame of mind, leaving the character to ricochet, wildly, from scene to scene. “The Sun Never Sets” may seek to shine light on a modest story about love and heartbreak, but when it comes to Wendy’s reasoning, we are often left in the dark.
The Sun Never Sets Rated R for adult indecision and sexual situations. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. In theaters.
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