Film review: Sunlight is funny and impressive, it rages against the dying of the light
Liam Carney, Maureen Beattie and Barry Ward in 'Sunlight'.
- Sunlight
- ★★★★☆
(15A) stars Barry Ward as Leon, a recovering heroin addict in inner-city Dublin who owes his second chance at life to his sponsor, Iver (Liam Carney).
Now the terminally ill Iver’s carer, Leon is happy to give up his day off to take the bedbound Iver out for a spin in the sunshine of the summer solstice — but when Leon arrives at Iver’s, he discovers his old pal in the throes of a planned ‘exit’ from this world, in which Iver is being assisted by Maria (Maureen Beattie). Horrified and enraged, Leon talks Iver into one last jaunt around the neighbourhood in his wheelchair, visiting the old haunts — a Viking reconstruction run by Anita (Lydia McGuinness), a pint in his former local — and hoping to change Iver’s mind.
Written by Ailbhe Keogan and directed by Claire Dix, is, by turns, a lackly comic and sobering account of coming to terms with inevitable death. The tonal shifts don’t always work as seamlessly as they might in terms of narrative progression, although it could be argued that they’re truer to life than the parameters of conventional storytelling generally allow for: as a recovering addict, Leon is prone to hyper-cycling through his emotional ups and downs, while Iver — despite being fully committed to making an ‘exit’ on his own terms — might be forgiven for second-guessing himself on occasion.
Either way, Liam Carney and Barry Ward are terrific here, the latter in his ability to blend Leon’s natural ebullience with his self-destructive streak, with Carney bringing the required gravitas to Iver’s desire to depart his vale of tears in a style befitting a man revered as ‘Iver the Viking’.
(cinema release)
