![]() I love Portlandia! I would do that show, in a heartbeat. So when Laurie told me J Mascis was doing the music for the movie, I was so excited! But I can live for two weeks off one package of spaghetti, you know what I’m saying? I was listening to a lot of Dinosaur Jr. I’m pretty low maintenance, and I know how to do it, but I’ve never done it in such a downward spiral, never like they had it. I never was in a situation like that, but I had jobs that sucked where I barely got by. For Naomi’s character to be stuck in that cycle, I get it. What’s interesting is you hold on to relationships and people that aren’t necessarily good for you. I remember Laurie Collyer talking about that book! She mentioned that to me. That’s what I liked about it.ĭid you ever read Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America? How difficult it is to live on a minimum wage, to just pay for the basics - food, shelter, clothing? It gave you an inside perspective on a situation that felt uncomfortable to watch. was that it felt like a very real, very honest portrayal of a family trying to hold it together. No zombies in Florida! The thing I liked about Sunlight Jr. Reedus, who of course also plays fan favorite Daryl Dixon on The Walking Dead, called up Vulture while shooting the finale of that show (“It’s a very ambitious episode they went big with it”) to chat about surviving on spaghetti, head-butting, and his wish to guest on Portlandia.ĭo you see anything in common with the show, and your new film? They’re both about the struggle to survive, although under very different circumstances. He doesn’t accept that she’s moved on, and uses his position as her mother’s landlord (and neighborhood drug dealer) to intimidate her further. Neither do the characters.In Sunlight Jr., Naomi Watts plays a convenience store clerk struggling to get by and to get away from her ex-boyfriend Norman Reedus, who’s taken to stalking and harassing her at work. Where do they go? The movie doesn't pretend to know the answer. Thus, "Sunlight Jr." concludes with a scene of genuine tenderness, but also genuine dread. The trajectory of the film is "predictable", except that it's predictable to the characters too, and their journey becomes about recognizing its own end. Sure, sure, Richie relentlessly promises that he will take care of her, but this is empty rhetoric with passionate delivery. When you cook on a hot plate and fish expired peanut butter out of the trash, how can you afford emergency room visits?Īnd that ultimately becomes the characters' struggle within each of themselves - not only if it's feasible for them to raise a child, but is it responsible? In fact, we see Melissa's mother raising (neglecting) a gaggle of foster kids, and wonder if the same fate awaits her daughter. Inevitably Melissa becomes pregnant, and when she rushes to the hospital in a scary emergency, though it turns out to be false alarm, Richie conveys concern for his wife but also disbelief at her fiscal irresponsibility. They argue, but the arguments are born of realistically difficult situations and all the fear they entail. Mascis's score is matched by Watts and Dillon, who for all the drudgery they are made to endure, still convince as a couple in love, carnally and emotionally, even if their emotions might not reach enlightened intellectual plains. It is sorrowful only in moments, mostly choosing for aural optimism, even in situations that appear less than optimistic. ![]() Mascis, the frontman of Dinosaur Jr., and Collyer chooses to serve the majority of her film with Mascis's music for accompaniment. This might make it sound as if "Sunlight Jr." is another indie film intent on simmering the viewer in the characters' crushing depression as a means to illustrate the unreachable nature of the so-called American Dream for so many, and that is there, but then listen closely to the soundtrack. They can hardly afford gas for the car, so much so that Richie covertly wheels out in the middle of the night to siphon some from a neighboring car. These are people who talk in lax Dollar Store cliches - "Don't make a federal case out of it." They live in a grimy one room motel, the sweat of humidity imbued in the sheets on the bed. These are not people who talk in absolutes. ![]() He makes vague references to a prior life of good money in construction, but makes just as vague a reference to spending it all away. There seems to be little sunlight in the lives of Melissa (Watts) and her boyfriend Richie (Matt Dillon), disabled and bound to a wheelchair. ![]() The title, of course, is meant to be ironic. ![]()
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