Cast: Angela Bassett, Edie Falco, James McDaniel, Ralph Waite, Richard Edson, Miguel Ferrer, Timothy Hutton, Mary Steenburgen, Jane Alexander, Gordon Clapp, Mary Alice, Bill Cobbs, Tom Wright, Alan King
Director: John Sayles
Producer: Maggie Renzi
Screenplay: John Sayles
Cinematography: Patrick Cady
Music: Mason Daring
U.S. Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Sunshine State does not represent John Sayles at his best, but it is imperative to note that middle-of-the-road Sayles is often better than the top-of-the-line product from many other filmmakers. The reason is simple: Sayles takes the time to investigate the humanity of his characters. For him, easy labels like "hero" and "villain" do not apply, and plot is typically secondary to the development of his protagonists - a means to flesh them out and move them forward. This is very much true of Sunshine State, the story of a small group of characters set during a late spring weekend in the Florida community of Plantation Island.
In a short prologue, an entrepreneur named Murray Sliver (Alan King) delivers a monologue about the packaging and selling of Florida as the American retiree's dream - warm temperatures, beautiful beaches, and golf courses. (Advertising brochures conveniently neglect to mention the humidity, swarms of mosquitoes, and alligators.) The reality of Florida is being gradually shaped to meet the illusion, with swamps being filled in to satisfy developers and poorer communities being bought up, torn down, and rebuilt as something more profitable. This gentrification is clearly on Sayles' mind, as it forms the background of much of what takes place during the course of Sunshine State. Yet, while Sayles clearly does not side with the developers (he portrays them as covert, amoral, and bumbling), he does not pass judgment on those who elect to sell to them - or those who refuse to give up their homes in the name of "progress".
The film's primary focus is on two families. The first is the Stokes, whose morally upright matriarch, Eunice (Mary Alice), owns a prime piece of shorefront property along Lincoln Beach. Coming home for the first time in nearly two decades is her daughter, Desiree (Angela Bassett), with her husband, Reggie (James McDaniel). Desiree lives in Boston but has returned to where she grew up with the intention of healing the rift between her and her mother that developed after she was "sent away" at age 15 with an unplanned pregnancy. But the tension between the two is thick, and the presence of a teen arsonist under Eunice's roof further complicates matters, as does the unexpected proximity of the former high school football phenom who was responsible for Desiree's condition all those years ago.
The other family is the Temples, who own Platation Island's lone motel. Marly (Edie Falco) runs the place for her father, Furman (Ralph Waite), whose blindness forced him into retirement. Marly's mother, Delia (Jane Alexander), wants nothing to do with the business, prefering to concentrate on local theater endeavors. Marly is growing restless, and wants to break out and do something with her life. The arrival of real estate developers looking to buy the motel causes her to seriously re-evaluate her situation, especially when she finds herself attracted to an engineering contractor, Jack Meadows (Timothy Hutton), hired by the developers to do a feasability study.
There are other characters as well. Solid, sturdy Dr. Lloyd (Bill Cobbs) is determined to fight the developers to his last breath. Francine Pickney (Mary Steenburgen), an upstanding member of the community, is feeling drained and unappreciated for her efforts to boost the locale's tourist economy. Her husband, Earl (Gordon Clapp), is up to his neck in gambling debts and fails at several inept attempts at suicide. (Sayles plays these for black comedy.) The tapestry is rich, although, despite the slow pace and two-hour, twenty minute running time, not as fully explored as it might be.
Aside from examining gentrification, Sayles also wants to say something about the increasing fragmentation of communities as the "old ways" give way to new ones. A throwaway scene illustrates this perfectly: in preparing a fried chicken dinner, Eunice opens a box from Popeye's rather than going to the trouble of making the meal from scratch - an effort that none of her guests would appreciate. The home-cooked meal has gone the way of the family dinner, but Eunice will not sell to the developers. She is willing to compromise on small things, but not big ones. Yet Lincoln Beach and Plantation Island are not what they once were. The prosperity of the past has been ground under by a sluggish economy and shifting public tastes. So the developers stand ready to take advantage.
The cast for Sunshine State is slightly more high-profile than is usual for a Sayles film, which leads to the consideration that some bigger-name actors are now considering it a mark of honor and respectability to appear in a movie with the Sayles/Renzi imprint on it. Angela Bassett, Edie Falco, Timothy Hutton, Mary Steenburgen, and Alan King may not be A-list stars, but they are respected actors, and their presence adds a number of familiar faces to the project. It doesn't hurt that all of them give fine performances, especially Bassett and Falco, who is aiming to prove that she can play someone other than Carmela Soprano. The supporting work by Bill Cobbs, Mary Alice, and James McDaniel is no less crucial to the film's success.
Sunshine State lacks the brilliance of Sayles' most dynamic offerings (Lone Star, Matewan, and Limbo leap to mind), but, for those who don't mind an unhurried, deliberate narrative pace, this is a worthwhile offering. Sunshine State may be slow (nothing much happens), but it is never boring because Sayles quickly insinuates us into the lives of these characters and keeps us interested until the pause in their existences that represents the ending of the movie. Many films have been made about Florida, but I can't recall one with this particular perspective.
© 2002 James Berardinelli