Is there a limit to family loyalties? Director Michel Franco explores the subject in “Sundown.” The film is set among the side of Acapulco that wealthy tourists know all too well. What lies beyond the facades of both the travelers and their seemingly idyllic location hold darker truths. For Franco, the 2021 Venice Film Festival entry was a personal journey that connected to his roots. “It is not a coincidence that “Sundown” takes place in Acapulco. It is shocking for me to witness the city where I spent childhood vacations turn to an epicenter of violence,” the filmmaker and writer revealed in his director’s statement.
The film is led by a pair of veteran actors. Tim Roth and Charlotte Gainsbourg play a couple at odds with both themselves and an ever-changing world. Critics were quick to point out Roth’s performance after the film’s premiere. The Playlist’s Carlos Aguilar described the actor’s take on the role as “resolute calmness and disinterest in conflict” further stating that it all serves to “testify to the actor’s ability for the understated construction of a character.”
The film’s official synopsis:
“Neil and Alice Bennett (Tim Roth, Charlotte Gainsbourg) are the core of a wealthy family on vacation in Mexico with younger members Colin and Alexa (Samuel Bottomley, Albertine Kotting McMillan) until a distant emergency cuts their trip short. When one relative disrupts the family’s tight-knit order, simmering tensions rise to the fore in this suspenseful jolt from writer/director Michel Franco.”
READ MORE: ‘New Order’: Unflinching Mexican Dystopian Film Shocks With Blistering Purpose [Venice Review]
Iazua Larios, Henry Goodman, Albertine Kotting McMillan, Samuel Bottomley also star in Michel Franco’s “Sundown.” It opens on January 28 in select theaters. Get your first look at the film’s trailer below.
