A movie about men generationally fumbling the bag as it sits right there in front of them, Joe Swanberg’s latest, The Sun Never Sets, follows Wendy, a young woman who seems to have finally found the life she’s wanted and is perfectly happy with it, only for her older boyfriend Jack to suggest that she go out and see the world – or at least some other parts of their Alaskan town – and live life as a single young adult for one last summer, just to make sure. Wendy, played by Dakota Fanning in one of the very best performances of her career, pleads with him that she’s happy, but ultimately takes his advice and starts going on a couple of dates. Of course, Jack probably didn’t think she’d actually listen to him, and certainly didn’t expect her to immediately reconnect with an old boyfriend who walked out of her life years earlier.
The first date is a real dud, with a guy named Brad who shares some of Wendy’s friend groups, but things take a sharp turn when she randomly runs into Chuck, her old ex, while they’re out. Chuck has returned to town with basically nothing: no living situation, very little money, and only the prospect of flying tourist planes for a fledgling startup run by one of his friends, a job he’s not even particularly convinced will work out. But Chuck is played by Cory Michael Smith, and there’s an immediate magnetism to him that you can see Wendy gravitating toward even as she’s only catching glimpses of him out of the corner of her eye while ordering drinks. She bails on Brad and spends the night, and eventually the following days, with Chuck instead. Meanwhile, Jack, who encouraged Wendy to date in the first place, is suddenly confronted with the reality that she might actually find someone else, and specifically someone he absolutely did not anticipate.
What follows is essentially a messy love triangle where two men repeatedly commit and de-commit from Wendy every time she puts her heart out there for one of them, finding new and increasingly unnecessary ways to blow their chances with a woman who frankly has her life far more together than either of them. Chuck is a straight-up loser, something the movie makes increasingly clear the longer he’s around. He skips out on spending time with Wendy’s friends, disappears from town for days without telling her, and generally behaves like someone who has never considered that his actions might affect another human being. Then there’s Jack, who oscillates between being completely all-in and completely checked out, even going on dates of his own at their usual trivia night spot just to make Wendy jealous, only to pull away again once he has her attention. The movie gets a lot of mileage out of watching these guys repeatedly fumble what is sitting directly in front of them, and the funniest part is that neither seems particularly aware of how much they’re doing it.
It’s pitched as a comedy, but The Sun Never Sets is much less sweet or glossy than your typical messy rom-com. I’m not all that familiar with Joe Swanberg’s previous work, but I can absolutely feel the influence of his collaborations with Greta Gerwig bleeding through here. This is an adultier rom-com in the best sense: funny without constantly needing punch lines, romantic without being particularly idealized, and centered on people in their late 20s and early 30s who are still figuring their lives out in real time, day by day. There’s something refreshingly unpolished about the way these characters talk, make decisions, hurt each other, and then immediately second-guess those same decisions. It feels less like a movie about finding the right person than one about realizing that sometimes the biggest obstacle standing between you and a good relationship is your own inability to stop fucking it up.
READ MORE MOVIE REVIEWS: The Kidnapping of Arabella, In the Grey, The Mandalorian and Grogu
I had a really great time with this, largely because the trio of performances hits exactly the right notes. Fanning is fantastic, giving Wendy a grounded emotional intelligence that makes it completely believable that both of these men would be drawn to her while also making their behavior increasingly frustrating to watch. Smith continues his run of playing characters you grow to detest the longer you’re around them, discarding Chuck’s magnetism as the evidence against him piles up. And Jake Johnson, looking a bit doughier and like he’s aged ten years since The Dink only a few months ago, gets to expand on his usual acting tendencies and find new ways to weaponize the cringy, insecure comedy he’s always been good at. None of these performances are trying to turn the movie into something bigger than it is, and that’s ultimately what makes the whole thing work. It’s just a really funny, messy, slightly melancholy movie about people who should probably know better and absolutely don’t.
The Sun Never Sets isn’t reinventing the rom-com, and I don’t think every detour in this love triangle lands with the same force, but there’s an honesty to its messiness that I really enjoyed. Swanberg understands that adult relationships are rarely clean enough to fit neatly into a romantic-comedy structure, especially when the people involved are still carrying around all the insecurities, bad habits, and unresolved shit that got them here in the first place. Dakota Fanning is the standout, but the chemistry between all three leads keeps the movie afloat even when the characters are actively trying to sink themselves.
Score: 7/10
The Sun Never Sets (2026)
- Cast: Dakota Fanning, Jake Johnson, Cory Michael Smith
- Director: Joe Swanberg
- Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
- Runtime: 102 minutes
- Rated: R
- Release Date: September 4, 2026
- Movies Like The Sun Never Sets: Sacramento, Mile End Kicks, Crossing Delancey
- Follow us on Letterboxd
