Sierra Falconer’s debut feature, Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake), unfolds like a series of postcards from a small-town summer: vivid, fleeting, and quietly profound. Through four loosely connected vignettes, Falconer captures the rhythms of life in a Michigan lakeside community, focusing just as much on the moments in between — the silences, the hesitations, the glances that go unnoticed — as the milestones of growing up, moving on, and holding onto the things that matter. With striking natural cinematography and an elegant minimalism, Falconer captures the beauty of everyday life with the patience and wisdom of a veteran filmmaker.
At its heart, Sunfish is a collection of coming-of-age stories, each focusing on a character at a crossroads. In the opening chapter, “Sunfish,” 14-year-old Lu (Maren Heary) finds herself unexpectedly spending the summer with her grandparents (Marceline Hugot and Adam LeFevre) after her mother — newly married, much to Lu’s surprise and chagrin — runs off with her beau for a last-minute honeymoon. Initially distant and resentful of the situation, Lu slowly connects with them through sailing and birdwatching, as the lake itself becomes a quiet witness to her personal growth. Meanwhile, in “Summer Camp,” violin prodigy Jun (Jim Kaplan) isolates himself in a relentless pursuit of perfection at the Interlochen Arts Camp orchestra, his anxiety manifesting in silent self-inflicted wounds. His performance is a masterclass in restrained emotion, a quietly devastating journey, both poignant and profound.
The third chapter, “Two-Hearted,” shifts the tone slightly. Here, single mother Annie (Karsen Liotta) and a terminally ill fisherman, Finn (Dominic Bogart), embark on an impromptu quest to catch an almost mythical fish, turning into an outlaw romance of sorts after they run afoul of a local bait shop owner (Wayne Duvall). The heightened energy of this segment clashes a bit with Sunfish’s otherwise understated tone, but Falconer’s careful direction ensures that even this chapter, with its sense of adventure, remains grounded in the film’s core themes of transition and legacy.
The final chapter, “Resident Bird,” is perhaps the most affecting. Sisters Blue (Tenley Kellogg) and Robin (Emily Hall) run their family’s lakeside boarding house, a ritual that seems timeless, until Robin prepares to leave for culinary school. Their story is a raw, heartfelt meditation on sibling love and the quiet ache of separation. Kellogg delivers what might be the film’s most moving performance, her emotions simmering beneath layers of defensiveness until they spill out in a final, tearful embrace.
Visually, Sunfish is a gorgeous film. Falconer and cinematographer Marcus Patterson turn Green Lake into more than just a setting: it becomes a character, a mirror reflecting each protagonist’s internal struggles. The film’s absence of modern technology — characters communicate via landlines, and there’s no sign of social media — lends it a timeless, almost dreamlike quality. It invites the audience to slow down and simply observe, much like its characters do.
Of course, as with many anthology films, some stories feel stronger than others, and certain transitions could be more deliberate. But what Falconer achieves here is quite lovely: a deeply humane, poetic debut that asks us to appreciate the simple beauty in life’s fleeting moments. With such a strong debut feature, Falconer deflty establishes herself as a director who understands that sometimes, the smallest moments hold the deepest meaning.
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