Director: Joe Swanberg
Writer: Joe Swanberg
Stars: Dakota Fanning, Jake Johnson, Cory Michael Smith
Synopsis: A woman’s relationship with her older, divorced boyfriend hits a rough patch just as her ex reappears in her life, leading to complicated emotions and messy entanglements in the Alaskan wilderness.
There’s something inherently frustrating about watching two people who clearly love each other struggle to figure out whether or not they should actually be together. Joe Swanberg’s The Sun Never Sets leans directly into that frustration, turning a seemingly straightforward breakup into a much messier examination of what it means to want a future with someone while still wondering if that future is actually the one you want.
Wendy (Dakota Fanning) has spent two years with Jack (Jake Johnson), a man who seems perfectly comfortable with the life he has built. He has children, a stable routine, and a pretty clear idea of what his future looks like. Wendy, meanwhile, is at an age where the question of what comes next feels increasingly unavoidable. She wants marriage, children, and a sense that her life is moving somewhere. Jack doesn’t necessarily want those things again. Neither of them is necessarily wrong, which is what makes their situation so painful.
When Jack suggests they spend six months apart, his reasoning is almost absurdly sincere. He wants Wendy to figure out whether she really wants him or whether she is simply afraid of letting go of the relationship they’ve built. It’s the kind of decision that sounds noble in theory and absolutely infuriating in practice. Of course Wendy spirals. Of course everything becomes more complicated. And when Chuck (Cory Michael Smith), the ex who once represented a different possibility for her life, comes back into the picture, that six-month experiment becomes even harder to navigate.
What I appreciated most about The Sun Never Sets is that Swanberg doesn’t really treat Chuck as the answer to Wendy’s problems. It would have been easy for the movie to become a conventional love triangle where one guy represents the safe choice and the other represents excitement and possibility. Instead, Chuck becomes another part of Wendy’s uncertainty. Even when someone else enters her life who seems to offer something different, she still has to confront the same question: what does she actually want?
That question is much more interesting than the romantic mechanics surrounding it.
The movie can absolutely test your patience. There are stretches where Wendy and Jack seem to have the same conversation in slightly different forms over and over again. Their constant drifting toward and away from each other eventually had me wanting to shake both of them and tell them to just make a decision. But at the same time, I think that repetition reflects something painfully recognizable about relationships. Sometimes people know a relationship isn’t working and still can’t bring themselves to walk away. Sometimes they break up and immediately realize they don’t actually want to be apart. Sometimes love doesn’t disappear simply because a relationship has become complicated.
Swanberg’s filmmaking fits this material perfectly. There’s a looseness to the movie that makes the characters feel less like perfectly constructed fictional people and more like people you might actually know. Conversations wander, emotions aren’t always neatly resolved, and the performances have a natural rhythm that makes the quieter moments feel particularly intimate. The film isn’t interested in turning every interaction into some grand cinematic declaration. Much of its charm comes from simply watching these people exist together.
Dakota Fanning is the heart of it all. She gives Wendy a warmth that makes it easy to understand why people are drawn to her, but she never makes her perfectly likable. Wendy can be impulsive, uncertain, selfish, affectionate, and frustrating all within the same scene. Fanning understands that contradiction and plays it beautifully. There’s a real sense of someone trying to hold onto the person she has been while figuring out who she wants to become.
Jake Johnson is also terrific, especially because Jack could have easily become an unbearable character. His decision to push Wendy away feels incredibly misguided, but Johnson gives him enough vulnerability that you can understand why he thinks he’s doing the right thing. There’s a sadness underneath his awkwardness. He knows Wendy wants things he may no longer be able to give her, and rather than confront that directly, he tries to remove himself from the equation.
The Alaskan setting adds another layer to the movie. The expansive snowy landscapes are beautiful without overwhelming the intimate nature of the story. Eon Mora’s 35mm cinematography gives everything a warm, slightly nostalgic texture, making the film feel like a memory even while its characters are stuck trying to decide what their future should look like.
Ultimately, The Sun Never Sets isn’t really about choosing between Jack and Chuck. It’s about Wendy learning that another person can’t necessarily give her the certainty she’s looking for. You can love someone and still want something different. You can have a relationship that works in many ways and still wonder whether it is enough. And sometimes the only way to figure that out is to step away from the life you’ve built and see what remains when you’re standing on your own.
I didn’t love every part of the journey, and the movie occasionally circles its ideas for a little too long, but there’s an honesty to its messiness that stayed with me. Swanberg has made a small, intimate film about a very big question: what happens when the person you love isn’t necessarily the person who can give you the life you want?
It’s imperfect, sometimes frustrating, but quietly affecting—and Dakota Fanning gives it a wonderful center.
