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Joe Swanberg returns for another realistic relationship mess in The Sun Never Sets

The mumblecore stalwart charmingly, simply navigates a midlife love triangle.

By Jacob Oller  |  August 25, 2026 | 10:00am
Photo: Independent Film Company
Film Reviews Joe Swanberg
Joe Swanberg returns for another realistic relationship mess in The Sun Never Sets

Joe Swanberg‘s films are a little more articulate now than when he was in the prolific mumblecore heyday of the early 2010s (he released six features in 2011 alone), but they’ve never outgrown or overenunciated their realism. The last decade has seen him slow his film output down, pivoting partially to TV and even operating a VHS rental out of the back of a pizza place. But that momentary pause, seemingly a deep breath before plunging back in, didn’t interrupt his honest view of how people clash and come together, imperfectly yet eternally. It’s only natural that his return to film, The Sun Never Sets, is both a familiar kind of relationship dramedy and a warm dirtbaggish embrace from a staple of the subgenre.

Swanberg once again works with his modern muse, Jake Johnson (Win It All, Digging For Fire, Drinking Buddies), but doesn’t place him in the center. That position is held by Dakota Fanning, who plays an Anchorage construction manager caught in a love triangle foolishly but believably constructed from insecurities. Wendy (Fanning) is dating Jack (Johnson), who’s older, more well-off, divorced, and co-parenting a pair of kids. Jack, in one of those boneheaded film-premise moves (and also one of those boneheaded self-destructive-schlub moves), suggests that before they take their relationship in an even more serious direction, Wendy should date around a little more to make sure that she’s not going to regret settling into Jack’s comfortable, established life. 

It’s a maneuver born of fear—Jack’s, not Wendy’s—and one whose black-and-white ultimatum (them or me!) reflects the lives of these people isolated on the edge of America, where one commits to fringe living and days are either everlasting or completely dark. The Sun Never Sets, by the way, looks much better than every anonymously urban version of this movie, and much better than the scrappy digital photography frequently deployed in some of Swanberg’s past works.

Of course, the one-sided decision to take a brief break collides head-on with the return of Wendy’s hunky manchild ex-boyfriend Chuck (Cory Michael Smith). After a few reluctant, crappy first dates with strangers and acquaintances holding unrequited crushes, Wendy inevitably reconnects with Chuck upon his arrival back in Alaska, but this contrived setup—of old flames, reliable beaus, and the indecisive woman caught between them—merely establishes a foundation for these three to provide mature emotional shades to this larger portrait of a complicated social circle. Similarly, the script was initially just composed of those more conventional structural bones and Swanberg’s personal experiences; the rest was left to improvisation. 

This means that much of The Sun Never Sets involves watching actors given the space (maybe too much space) to feel out their characters’ needs. That sometimes leads to the film brushing up against ideas of nonmonogamy, and exploring its impact on those who accidentally back into it rather than intentionally seek it out. Though these are laid-back, emotionally experienced people—Jack’s ex-wife is a part of his life and Wendy’s—being thrust into unfamiliar levels of openness, especially around dating the same woman, can still cause them to act out. 

When Jack does it, Johnson makes the pettiness funny, if not fully acceptable. He’s particularly delightful in unpacking his character’s imperfections—navigating his immediate regret with a cuddliness befitting his dad bod—and realistically fallible, especially as he wounds those around him, like a woman he dates played by the winning Karley Sciortino. When Chuck’s fuckboy (though he’s getting a little old to be called that) pulls away, confronted by the expectations of a grown-up relationship, it’s with the kind of cold brutality that immediately allows the audience to understand how he and Wendy fell apart in the first place.

This leaves Fanning with the most complicated role of the bunch: Wendy’s got to be believably stuck between her desires, sharp enough to compel but frustrating enough to keep the plot alive. Bits of surrounding community detail help her get there, like the irritating, watch-tapping reality of her newly pregnant friend. Various milestone windows seem to be closing all around her, while she’s stuck in a familiar crisis: Stability (which can sometimes look like settling) on one side, adventure and excitement (which can often look like flaking around with a loser) on the other. She wants to buy a boat, rough it, go backpacking for hours; she also wants to be in a relationship with someone who can talk about the future in full sentences. Though drawn along simple lines, Fanning accesses frustration and freedom in the push-pull split, joyously savoring the illusion of a bad-boy fling and then fully feeling the hurt when it inevitably falls through. Similarly, she’s able to fit snugly into Jack’s established family dynamic while still letting moments in that relationship visibly chafe. Like much of the film, her performance isn’t great because of what it’s doing, but how it’s doing it.

The Sun Never Sets could easily slide into stereotype, if only because it finds its foundation in something so common as to be cliché. Like any cliché, though, there’s plenty of truth here, which is something Swanberg has always excelled at, even when his films didn’t have nearly this much polish.

Director: Joe Swanberg
Writer: Joe Swanberg
Starring: Dakota Fanning, Jake Johnson, Cory Michael Smith, Debby Ryan, Anna Konkle, Lamorne Morris, Karley Sciortino
Release Date: August 28, 2026

 
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