… I wanted to show that love is a miraculous thing that can exist anywhere. (Melissa and Richie) still have each other, and this love that's helping them heal. "I never intended to make a bleak, hopeless movie," Collyer said, "because I do feel love is really powerful, and the movie ends on that note. may be merely a footnote in the history of Tampa Bay filmmaking but Collyer is proud of it, and the faint rainbow behind all the darkness. I mean, you talk about Pinellas but Pasco is really rough. "They were a little more rural, like the LaBelle area (in the southwest inland)." The production briefly returned in 2012 for pickup shots in Pasco County "which, by the way, is such a hard-hit place. "I actually found some parts of Florida that would've made in some ways a better backdrop," Collyer said. More than $176,000 was rebated to the production under Florida's tax credits program, an incentive for attracting productions to the state that's currently depleted.Ĭollyer said Tampa Bay, specifically Clearwater, was solely a logistics selection as a locale for all this gloom, close enough to a major airport for actors, crew members and equipment to slip in and out of town. Nearly a quarter million dollars was paid to Floridians working in the cast and crew. "But it's one I really believe in, so there you have it." to be fully embraced by the public because it's telling a hard story, a painful story. "Movies are magical and all that, but really at the end of the day it's an industry. "It's polarizing people see it as bleak," she said in a telephone interview. Collyer is surprised it's "flying under the radar" but understands why. Yet it's the most honest depiction of Florida life - one portion, at least - in the Trampa Bay Trilogy. won't reach the awareness level or box office results of Magic Mike or Spring Breakers, by a long shot. /rebates/2fwatch-online2fmovies2fdrama2fsunlight-jr.2f9a194fa6-ed6b-3aae-a2ef-149691992b61&252fwatch-online252fmovies252fdrama252fsunlight-jr. The rights fell to savvy Gravitas Ventures, credited with more than 400 releases, none hits except on balance sheets. Watching anyone over 30 working for minimum wage would achieve the same goal in about 15 minutes. Despite favorable reviews at its Tribeca Film Festival debut, and a cast also featuring Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead), major distributors passed on Sunlight Jr. is one no-hope bummer after another, and it’s just not psychologically or sociologically acute enough to make the experience worthwhile. Neither is the picture bright for Collyer's movie. Petersburg, or now on iTunes, Amazon and other video- on-demand outlets. It isn't a pretty picture, which moviegoers can see for themselves when Sunlight Jr. is part of what Id like to call American poverty films, in the likes of Winters Bone, Wendy And Lucy, and Frozen River. It sheds light on nothing.An unexpected pregnancy for lovers trapped in this poverty, played by Oscar nominees Naomi Watts and Matt Dillon, only complicates matters. GRADE: 3 out of 5 And Naomi Watts venture into roles that are emotionally beaten and bruised continues. It evokes zero emotion from the audience. Justin (Norman Reedus of "The Walking Dead") serves as the main guy we are supposed to boo and hiss at. Melissa is the only barely likeable one in the bunch, but it's difficult to summon much sympathy for her, either. There are the usual conflicts among various characters, but it's a real chore to figure out who to root for. A couple of other subplots evolve, none of which are particularly compelling. Their lives together take turns for the worse, forcing them to move in with her alcoholic mother and a bunch of little kids that are always there for some reason. Then again, in real life we often run into similar relationships that make no sense. We believe that he loves her and that she loves him, although at times it's hard to understand why she loves him. He tells her all the time how much he loves her and how he will provide for her, but while she is at work, he drinks and fools around with the other local losers. Richie is a paraplegic alcoholic who talks a far better game than he plays. Her boss is an idiot who gives her grief when he is not heading to his private office with a naked gal magazine under his arm. She is habitually late to work, not because she is a screw-up, but rather because her life is screwed up. She has a minimum-wage job in the local Sunlight Jr, which is a 7-11 type convenience store. Melissa (Watts) and her boyfriend Richie (Dillon) live together on the edge of total poverty. But as everyone learns by the age of two, lots of promises get broken. It has Naomi Watts and Matt Dillon in lead roles and a brief synopsis makes it sound promising. On its face, "Sunlight Jr." looks like it might turn out to be a big winner.
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