THE STORY – Lives intertwine around Green Lake as a girl learns to sail, a boy fights for first chair, two sisters operate a bed-and-breakfast, and a fisherman is after the catch of his life.
THE CAST – Maren Heary, Jim Kaplan, Karsen Liotta, Dominic Bogart, Tenley Kellogg & Emily Hall
THE TEAM – Sierra Falconer (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 87 Minutes
“Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake),” the debut feature film from Sierra Falconer, begins in such a relaxing manner. It’s as if you’re waking up naturally on a perfect summer day. As the opening credits are intercut with the natural beauty of a lakeside town in Northern Michigan, Falconer perfectly sets the tone for her film. The titular Green Lake is one that brings a soothing presence even through a movie screen. Looking at it, one might be overwhelmed by all the possibilities it could contain. Just imagine all the stories it’s seen over the years. In this film, Falconer presents us with four of those stories. Told in a series of loosely connected vignettes, fans of High Maintenance, Slacker, and countless Robert Altman films will likely go giddy with excitement as I did when “Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake)” first reveals its hand. But prior to this exciting move, Falconer whisks us away from the serenity of the lake to the catalyst of her initial story.
Lu (Maren Heary) is a 14-year-old waiting outside of school. Like all teenagers seem to be, she appears bored out of her mind on a bench. Once a beat-up truck speeds into the frame towards her, things rapidly start clicking into place. A shotgun wedding has occurred between her mother and now step-father, and before Lu can even process this news, she’s being dropped off at her grandparent’s lake house. To Lu, this is a waking nightmare. To the viewer, it seems like legitimate heaven. The peace and beauty of such a setting radiates off the screen. But where Falconer first reveals her deeper thoughts on this setting is made clear in the greeting Nan (Marceline Hugot) and Pop (Adam LeFevre) share with Lu. It’s shot from the exterior of the house through a large window. We can only hear the muffled words of greeting and welcome, but it signals a clear sense of feeling out of place. This may be a beautiful locale for an audience member, but this unfamiliar place represents something vastly different for Lu. It’s in feeling this dichotomy of place that Falconer’s film hinges its connective tissue on, and it works magnificently.
Much of “Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake)” operates on the fundamental rule of showing rather than telling. For example, as Falconer effortlessly transitions into the second story, there’s a noticeable shift in cinematic language and style. Whereas the first story is very serene, full of long takes and wide-framed images, Jun’s (Jim Kaplan) story has a much harsher tempo. This is by design. He’s practicing under rigid circumstances: he, or perhaps his seemingly overbearing mother on her son’s behalf, is vying for first chair at a musical summer camp. With frenetic editing and repeatedly relying on intense close-ups, the sounds and images mimic Jun’s interior thoughts. They can also be read clearly on his face. While we might only know Jun briefly, anybody can relate to his situation. Looking out into the expansive future, with our whole lives ahead of us, can be an overwhelming sensation. Upon reaching a breaking point, Falconer returns to the same type of shot we saw when Lu enters her grandparent’s home. From the exterior of his rehearsal pod, it feels as if Jun isn’t where he truly wants to be. Perhaps he just wants a genuine connection, seeing as he eats lunch alone and sits on the sand with nothing but his own thoughts and Green Lake to keep him company. As this story comes to a close, the hidden undercurrent of pain in this setting begins to seep in just a bit more. But Falconer will bring her audience to that in time.
At this point, upon ringing in the third story of “Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake)”, a beautiful mosaic is being created. Despite having little to no physical connection between characters across these stories, they all feel like part of a whole. The connective tissue is the lake itself. While it may come to represent different things to different individuals, the lake is ever-present. Again, from an outside perspective, it’s obviously beautiful. But to Annie (Karsen Liotta), a young mother who has lived here her whole life, it’s “like a black hole.” If a specific place and the same set of people are all we see for our entire lives, would it not become grating? Should we not aspire for something more? Annie very much seems to feel stuck, and it’s clear over the course of this story that she’s looking for any sort of shakeup to her daily routine. If she’s to be in this specific place for most of her life, there must at least be a way to spice it up a bit. This story is the most adventurous in “Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake),” opting for an almost surreal quality to it that, while not quite out of place, is a fascinating turn from the very grounded previous stories. Despite the conflicted emotions in “Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake),” Falconer makes it clear there is an undeniably magic quality to such a place as Green Lake. It’s why both staying there and saying goodbye to it may feel complicated in their own distinct ways.
The fourth and final story of “Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake)” directly deals with this feeling. In it, we are introduced to a tender relationship between two sisters, Robin (Emily Hall) and Blue Jay (Tenley Kellogg). It’s the final days of summer, and Robin is preparing to leave for culinary school. Adept at capturing emotion through pure visuals, Falconer conveys a warm, palpable bond between the two. The clarity of this sisterly adoration for one another makes the story’s events all the more crushing. Green Lake has always belonged to the two of them. The quiet moments, or the days that boredom invaded, were all eased by the comfort of knowing they had one another. So, what happens when these two are separated? Falconer deftly captures the pain and worry present in such a conundrum. But through her beautiful ode to Green Lake, she reminds her audience and characters that it will be okay. There are stories occurring all around us in nature in which we can imprint our own lives onto them. These moments come and go; they can bring us joy and sadness or heartbreak and fulfillment. All together, these events simply create the tapestry of our own experience. In creating her own non-traditional, semi-autobiographical, yet fictional tapestry of Green Lake, Falconer has graciously opened up her own experiences and personal setting for audiences to imprint upon. The beauty of cinema is finding ourselves within it and creating our own story through our interpretations of events we’re seeing. “Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake)” is simply a beautiful film in that exact regard.
