Who Loves the Sun

Though the title of this Canadian drama suggests sun-dappled glory and keening emotion, rest assured it’s the same old sorry story of Canuck self-flagellation. Will Morrison (Lukas Haas) is the onetime best friend of successful novelist Daniel Bloom (Adam Scott). Daniel made the mistake of sleeping with Will’s wife Maggie (Molly Parker) and then Will made the mistake of skipping town (and his marriage) for the next five years. Yes, these sun-loving men are not especially sharp but writer/director Matt Bissonnette contrives (barely) to get the trio back together at the cottage owned by Daniel’s parents, where the two men glower at each other while Maggie wishes the boys would get over it. I know I wished they would get over it. Not only are the male protags the charisma-free lumps generally found moping about the house or uttering wit-free insults but they epitomise a Canuck archetype of selfish male screw-ups who never put it together until it’s much too late. Though Will eventually gets the moral jump on self-regarding New York transplant Daniel, they’re both doomed to be dopey men who let down the women in their lives, an agonising spectacle seemingly manufactured as a mea culpa for Bissonnette’s unspecified transgressions. Of course, by the time you get to the CanCon element the film has long since committed suicide with inert drama and under-drawn characters that might have seemed melodramatic if this wasn’t Canada and somebody knew how to do that sort of thing. Though it’s a smooth projection from bitterness to acceptance, it’s also populated by characters that don’t exactly arouse sympathy, not because they’re evil but because they’re determined to do things that are beyond any emotionally mature being.