Sunrise (2024)
Directed by Andrew Baird
Written by Ronan Blaney
Starring Guy Pearce, Alex Pettyfer, Crystal Yu
Release Date January 19th, 2024
Published January 18th, 2024
You know that modern trend of movie musicals that don't want you to know that they are musicals? You know? Wonka, Mean Girls, The Color Purple, movies that downplay the fact that they are centered on characters breaking into song? Sunrise is that as a Vampire movie. Sunrise does little to communicate the fact that it is a vampire movie. Even while watching Sunrise you have to work hard to determine that what you are watching is a vampire movie. The vampire in question walks around in daylight, though its set in the Pacific Northwest so that could just be a function of lack of sun, but truly few of the vampire movie tropes are visible in Sunrise, engendering a deep and abiding confusion over what this movie is supposed to be.
Sunrise stars Guy Pearce as Reynolds, a bully and a tyrant, ruling over a pacific northwest town with an iron fist. With his mother, Ma Reynolds (Olwen Fouere) imperiously at his side, Reynolds uses intimidation and fear to get what he wants and what he wants is the property of a recently arrived Asian family. Yan Loi (Crystal Yu) has survived seeing her brother murdered and is now facing threats to her own life and the life of her son Edward (William Gao), as she works to maintain her land. It's at this point that an unlikely stranger enters her life.
Alex Pettyfer co-stars in Sunrise as Fallon, a former cop who was forced to watch as Reynolds' thugs murdered his wife. Fallon himself was also left for dead but something saved his life. For the past several years he's stalked the forest living off the land and perhaps plotting revenge. When he's found on the land owned by Yan Loi he's in bad shape and is nursed back to health. In secret, Fallon asks Edward to get him blood to drink. This begins to restore Fallon's strength and as he comes back to health, he begins to look out for the Loi family, preparing for a showdown with Reynolds.
It's more coherent in my retelling here than it is in the actual movie, Sunrise. For one thing, my description doesn't account for the fact that Pettyfer, though credited as the co-lead of the movie alongside Guy Pearce, spends most of the movie in a bed, in darkness, occasionally rising to drink blood. Pettyfer already isn't the most expressive actor on the planet. Leaving him to mumble a few words while lying down in a dark room is not exactly the best use of his talents. Pettyfer is a handsome dude whose best features, cheekbones, abs, are visual.
Find my full length review at Geeks.Media
