After the Sun Fell

After the Sun Fell is one of those films that is hard to categorize. It tells the story of a family in denial over a horrible loss, and the dysfunction that can arise from turning away from it. Adam (Danny Pudi), plays an outsider, an artist friend of the families' son, Brandon (Neal Bledsoe). Pudi is dealing with his own sense of loneliness as the story opens and decides to tag along with Brandon to visit his parents. As the stranger to this family of characters, caught in an emotional tangle, Adam becomes the unintentional catalyst that bubbles up family secrets and hidden pain for one last time. After the Sun Fell includes tragically humorous performances by Joanna Bayless as Brandon's mom and Lance Hendrickson as the dad as well as Diana DeGarno's performance as Piper the complex waitress and house cleaner with her own agenda. With a beautiful backdrop of fall colors Tony Glazer (director) and Adrian Correia (Cinematographer) submerge you into the emotions of this ensemble of messes and even subtly deliver the ghosts of the past in the filming. This Art film portrays a family in transition with an incredible ensemble cast - a testament to old wounds and healing. After the Sun Fell is a beautiful, quirky film, whose characters, house and background will stay with you for quite some time.

I found this film after reading a Danny Pudi interview, as I'm a huge fan of Community and Abed is definitely my favorite character. I wanted to enjoy this film. But, it felt incredibly artificial from the first moments. I found the performances by Danny Pudi and Lance Henriksen (the best-friend's father) to both be quite good, even great at moments, but the less than adequate quality of the script and production ended up making even their performances feel forced. The "craig's list girl", Diana DeGarmo, may have given the most convincing performance in the film, unfortunately her role was only secondary. Much of the film's dialogue was cringe-worthy and didn't feel remotely realistic/relatable. There were often moments throughout the film that presented themselves as profound, queue panning landscape or close-up of Danny Pudi pondering life, but the story just fell flat every time. From my humble perspective the blame seems to fall on the production team more so than the cast, in this one. As I'm not familiar with all these actors, some of them may have solid performances in other films.But, this isn't going to be on that list. If you want a great performance from Danny Pudi, go see all of Community. If you want to see an art-film about depression or family dynamics, you're better off looking to Garden State or Melancholia.

TLDR: If you are die-hard fan of one of these actors, give it a light-watch. But, don't expect to see something profound, in any way.

I really enjoyed this movie. I don't laugh out loud often, but this movie made me do just that. Aside from its many comical moments, it was truly a beautiful story about a family reconnecting, after a tragedy almost tore them apart. I thought it was really well cast, but was especially moved by Neal Bledsoe and Joanna Bayless' performances.

10/10 from me!