Set between New York City and the far north of Norway, The Sunlit Night follows American painter Frances and émigré Yasha as an unlikely pair who find each other in the Arctic circle. Frances has arrived to jumpstart her career while Yasha has come to bury his father in the land of the Vikings. Together under a sun that never quite sets, they bury the past and discover the future, and family, they didn't know they had.... (Full plot summary below)
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Set between New York City and the far north of Norway, The Sunlit Night follows American painter Frances and émigré Yasha as an unlikely pair who find each other in the Arctic circle. Frances has arrived to jumpstart her career while Yasha has come to bury his father in the land of the Vikings. Together under a sun that never quite sets, they bury the past and discover the future, and family, they didn't know they had.
Leave your thoughts about The Sunlit Night.
| The Film StageJared MobarakYou couldn’t ask for a better guide through the psychological landscape of her character’s desires than Slate. Her ability to be hilarious despite a quiet role like Frances lends an indelible charm that ensures we’re in her corner from the beginning. |
| The New York TimesTeo BugbeeThis movie about artistic inspiration is meandering and slight, but, in a way, it provides evidence for why it’s helpful to cast actors with movie-star charisma. |
| TimeStephanie ZacharekFeels like three-quarters of a movie. It leaves you wanting some elusive soupçon of comedy or drama or romance that it just doesn’t deliver. Yet even within those parameters, there’s something appealingly human about it: It has the warmth of a tiny beach fire on a cool night, casting a soft glow that makes you want to creep closer; there’s wistfulness, at least, in its low-key quietude. |
| RogerEbert.comMatt FagerholmWhat I enjoyed most about the film is how it illustrates the ways in which we view life through the prism of art in order to reach a deeper understanding of it. |
| Movie NationRoger MooreWhatever they edited out of The Sunlit Night, they made certain to keep the funny, sweet and sunny parts. And Slate makes the time pass like a late summer Green Flash — an enchanting moment or two or three, and gone. |
| IndieWireKate ErblandAt least there’s Slate, who gamely approaches her character with sensitivity and care (the actress also produced the project) and keeps Frances grounded even as The Sunlit Night sputters around her. |
| The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeSlate and Sharp (a Tony winner for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) can't be blamed for their lack of chemistry, and if sparks aren't flying between them, at least viewers can occasionally drown in gorgeous coastal scenery, shot nicely by Martin Ahlgren. |
| The A.V. ClubShannon MillerUnfortunately, everything engaging about the narrative is overshadowed by gratuitous quirkiness. |
| Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperThis is an artist’s coming-of-age story featuring a wonderful actress who’s unfortunately not right for the role; a shambling screenplay that has characters wandering in and out of the story as if in search of their own movie, and not one but two of the most off-putting patriarchal figures in recent memory. |
| Boston GlobeTy BurrTaken as a whole, The Sunlit Night is fey and inconclusive, and whether something of more substance got cut in the post-Sundance re-edit or was never there to begin with is at this point moot. The movie’s up a most beautiful creek without a paddle. |
