Sunshine

Most films fit in a well-defined category. They are usually marketed as being sci-fi, thriller, horror, romance, fantasy, or drama. The marketing folks love this because trying to describe a story as belonging to a single genre makes it easier to grab an audience. They can specifically target one specific market for their ads, their review copies, promotional outlets, etc. Their trailers are made with that in mind. The music, the scenes from the film they want to highlight, even the font for the title, is all massaged to fit their marketing.

When a story strays from the typical genre formula, it risks becoming a box office flop. Reviewers will complain that audiences were bait and switched or that the tale didn’t live up to the promises revealed in the trailer.

Danny Boyle’s film Sunshine is a suspenseful, sci-fi, special effects masterpiece somewhat marred by its eventual inclusion of certain horror elements that didn’t seem to fit. While the trailer gave potential audiences a somewhat less than foreboding orchestral piece coupled with special effects porn, it hardly captured the heart and soul of the movie.

While the first time you see the movie, it may feel a bit pedestrian or awkward in its storytelling style, it does fit. Hollywood sometimes has to give us the entire plot history before the film really gets going because they’re worried audiences are too stupid to get it. While we get that little intro at the beginning, the reasons for their journey, the failure of the first mission, and all the other details can easily be gathered by the dialogue the characters have in the first 30 minutes or so of the movie.

Regardless of the heavy-handed intro, the film is gorgeous, filled with interesting characters who do not necessarily get along, and the stakes are as large as they get—humanity’s survival. I’ve said before that such stakes are mind-bogglingly abstract, so I’ll put it this way: the main character is trying to save his sister and her kids by traveling to Sol and restarting it. There. Those big enough stakes for you?

Kappa, played by Cillian Murphy, is an unlikely hero—a physicist who at first seems to lack mettle and perhaps a strong survival instinct. But besides being eye-candy, Murphy plays the character’s desperation, his frustration and guilt, to a T. He more or less makes the film what it is. While a few of the characters are less than well fleshed out, we get their mannerisms and psychology through little details such as cooking dinner for the crew, a fight, a habitual shower in sunlight, and other such moments.

Now, let’s cut to the bad. Basically, the story moves from being just about the crew fighting space, their impending dangerous attempt to restart the sun, and personal battles; it includes a rather nasty horror thread that starts more than an hour into the movie. This thread, while very interesting for what it is, ends up somewhat derailing what we thought the story was about.

Sunshine is more than its constituent parts. I’m certain more intelligent critics than I have made the argument that Sunshine is really about humankind’s relationship with god, how even after millennia, we still worship our star. So much so that we are willing to risk everything to please it. Or, in this case, heal it.

This is a movie I watch a few times a year, picking over every scene, mining its relationship with its soundtrack (which, by the way, is absolutely badass), and stockpiling away the little moments and details that make the characters come alive. Incidentally, Sunshine contains one of the most epic 3-minute sequences in film history. At least in my mind. The way it’s scored, presented, and makes me clench my fists is a tribute to Boyle’s brilliance in choreographing the scene as well as Murphy’s acting. If you’ve never seen the movie, watch it. I’d love to hear what you think. Become a patron and get access to published and unpublished books voiced by the author!