Regardless of being a movie about childhood most cancers, “Sunny Dancer” makes some extent to not present its viewers any of the illness’s worst moments. There’s not a hospital mattress or physician to be discovered, and its most tragic diagnoses and deaths occur offscreen. Watch the film on mute, and also you’d in all probability do not know that it’s even about most cancers, because it simply seems like a routine coming-of-age film set at a summer time camp.
That’s all by design, however it doesn’t change the truth that most cancers looms giant over each scene. “Sunny Dancer” follows Ivy (Bella Ramsey), a 17-year-old who has been in remission for 10 months. She’s wholesome, however her battle with most cancers robbed her of fairly just a few formative teenage experiences and left her socially stunted. Sensing this, her mother and father all however drive her to spend a summer time at CRF (an acronym for “Youngsters Run Free”), a camp designed to ease most cancers survivors and sufferers again into childhood.
After the whole lot she’s been by way of, Ivy can sense pity from a mile away. She makes it clear that she has no real interest in attending one thing she dismissively calls “Chemo Camp.” She’s self-aware sufficient to intrinsically perceive that her social improvement has been broken, however her want for normalcy is nearly outweighed by her distaste for something that makes her really feel like a “Make-a-Want Child.” However the autonomy of 17-year-olds has its limits, and Ivy quickly finds herself shipped off to a month at camp towards her will.
CRF is way from the hellscape that Ivy makes it out to be, and it instantly turns into clear that typically our mother and father actually do know greatest. The operation is run by Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris), a guardian who misplaced a baby to most cancers and devoted his life to creating the expertise simpler for different households battling the illness. He demonstrates an admirable quantity of persistence for Ivy’s blatant expressions of displeasure, although he ultimately stops hiding how a lot her barbed complaints about his life’s work damage him. However even when he drops the niceties, he by no means stops attempting to offer her a second probability at childhood innocence.
You possibly can in all probability guess the place issues go from right here: the magic of a teenage summer time slowly grinds down Ivy’s negativity, and her experiences with friendships and romances give her a brand new lease on life. “Sunny Dancer” depends closely on established beats from different coming-of-age films, although Jaques dramatizes the whole lot with the maturity of an artist who understands that each teenager thinks these experiences are utterly distinctive to them. The movie arrives in cliched territory by its third act (“Right here, I’m simply Ivy, not Ivy with most cancers”), however it’s not as if anybody watching a film about youngsters recovering from most cancers needs to see it finish every other approach.
Even when the movie is simple and predictable at occasions, “Sunny Dancer” considerably redeems itself with the sincerity of its performances. Ramsey is great as Ivy, opting to lean into the character’s failed makes an attempt at normalcy and let her stunted improvement and inherent mistrust within the notion that something good will ever occur to her emerge naturally. Harris is equally wonderful as Patrick, eschewing the temptation to lean too arduous into both being the “cool grownup” or a dorky and out-of-touch one. Similar to his campers, he carries his personal ache and alternates between deep empathy and outbursts when he can’t take it anymore. However there’s by no means a doubt that Patrick is attempting to make an inherently unfair world a barely higher place every single day, and even essentially the most cynical viewers are prone to get pleasure from seeing him make just a little progress.
Within the movie’s press supplies, Jaques explains that his aim was to make a most cancers film that prioritizes joyful moments with out hiding the burden of its subject material. It’s an admirable aim, and one which he actually achieves. Given how a lot of the film is only a easy summer time coming-of-age story, “Sunny Dancer” would possibly work higher as an idea on paper than a film onscreen. However there’s nonetheless no denying that, identical to Patrick, Jaques has made a bleak subgenre of cinema just a little bit sunnier.
Grade: B-
“Sunny Dancer” premiered on the 2026 Berlin Worldwide Movie Pageant. It’s at present searching for U.S. distribution.
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