Telling the tale of the inhabitants of two different sides of a fictional Florida beach community, John Sayles populates his new film, Sunshine State, with as many characters as you can possibly pack into a two-hour and twenty-minute film. While that provides variety, it has the annoying side effect of cluttering up the story with people who are given scenes that hint at something important, but are then ignored and their stories left unresolved.
The main focus of the film is on two women, Marly Temple (Edie Falco) and Desiree Perry (Angela Bassett). Marly has taken over her father’s motel and, while it was his dream to build it, she has no passion for it and is thinking about selling out to a strip mall development company. Desiree left town when she was 15, pregnant, and perceived as a threat to her parents’ middle class respectability. Now she’s back to visit her mother and some important characters from her past with her new husband, Reggie (James McDaniel.)
Both of these characters have issues with their respective futures because they haven’t dealt with their past. This is also a problem facing their community, Plantation Island, Florida. Faced with a past that includes pirates, Indians, murder and racial division, the area is attempting to reinvent itself. The city council is courting developers who plan to transform the area into a gated community with little regard to the area’s past history or the impact on nature. Local businesses are being run out-of-town by national franchises. The locals feel pressured between the memories of the past and the promise of big buyouts from the developers.
While it’s clear that Sunshine State has a point-of-view, the screenplay seems to warrant the inclusion of at least three characters to say the same thing in three different ways. The effect on the pacing of the film is slowed to practically crawling across the screen. Although the performances are all top-notch and the cast includes some great names like Alan King, Mary Steenburgen and Timothy Hutton, it’s too bad that many of the characters are basically overlong cameo appearances.
Ultimately, the movie says that we don’t learn from past mistakes and by not doing so, we’re doomed to keep repeating them. Not a particularly engaging topic and this isn’t a particularly engaging movie. Interesting, but not terribly so.
2.5 out of 5.0 stars
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