“Sunlight Jr.” a Dark Portrait of Florida Life
By Skip Sheffield
The best thing I can say about “Sunlight Jr.” is that it
makes me really glad I do not live in the Greater Tampa Bay area.
“Sunlight Jr.,” written and directed by Laurie Collyer
(Sherrybaby”), paints Tampa/Clearwater at its worst; a barren land of strip
malls, tawdry motels, trailer parks and trailer trash. It is playing locally at
FAU’s Living Room Theaters.
Naomi Watts and Matt Dillon play a low-rent, low-educated
couple, Melissa and Richie, who live in one of those tawdry motels near a strip
mall that has the 24-hour convenience store of the title.
Melissa is a cashier at Sunlight Jr. Her boss is a sexist
pig who cruelly orders her on the graveyard shift, making her hard life even
more miserable.
Richie is an embittered paraplegic due to a construction
accident. His only subsistence is a small disability check, doled out
reluctantly by social workers who suspect he is just a lazy bum.
When Melissa announces she is pregnant, Richie only
momentarily expresses alarm, and then claims he is happy. The two are obviously
in love and really have the hots for each other, so why not get married?
Well, Melissa is being stalked by a creepy ex-boyfriend (Norman
Reedus) who deals drugs and harasses her. If that weren’t bad enough, Melissa
gets fired from her crappy job. If you think there is a silver lining to this
story you would be wrong.
It is admirable that Laurie Collyer feels such empathy with
the poor, downtrodden, disadvantaged and self-destructive members of society,
but their sad tale of woe is not very interesting, let alone uplifting.
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