The director of after-school special turned social horror movie “After Lucia” and harrowing class-uprising thriller “New Order” takes on a more relaxed vibe for his latest film, “Sundown.” That doesn’t make the new film from Mexican filmmaker Michael Franco any less bewildering in its story of a man (Tim Roth, who previously starred in Franco’s “Chronic” as a hospice caregiver) who abandons his life to live beachside in Acapulco. If anything, “Sundown” is even more opaque than the director’s recent efforts. Watch the first trailer for the film below.
The film also stars Charlotte Gainsbourg (in a brief but potent performance as Roth’s manically grieving sister), Iazua Larios, Henry Goodman, Albertine Kotting McMillan, and Samuel Bottomley.
Here’s the 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.”
Bleecker Street Films will release “Sundown” January 28 in select theaters.
Read more about the film from IndieWire’s review out of the 2021 Venice Film Festival:
The characters in Michel Franco’s “Sundown” are on a luxurious Mexican holiday in which they swim in the clear sea and their private infinity pool, take a regal interest in the local singers and cliff divers, and lie flat out on sun loungers on their hotel suite’s terrace while a waiter brings them their morning margaritas. It’s relaxing for them, but absolutely nerve-frazzling for anyone who saw Franco’s last film, “New Order,” a traumatizingly gory drama in which a high-society wedding turned into a bloodbath, and things got more stressful from there.
Sure enough, it doesn’t take long for trouble to come to this particular paradise, but “Sundown” is quieter and more oblique than “New Order.” It’s smaller, too, in terms of its cast and its scope. That film’s merciless depiction of a city imploding in revolution and counter-revolution thrilled some viewers and offended others, most vocally in Franco’s native Mexico. His enigmatic follow-up is more likely to prompt puzzled conversations about what he’s getting at.
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