"The New Year" is a touching, funny and engaging indie from 2010, a little formulaic, but it held our interest to the end. Trieste Kelly Dunn really connects as Sunny, an ex-high-school star, now in her early twenties, who's put her life on hold to care for her ailing father. She works the counter in a failing "bowling center," which provides a great location, along with Pensacola stripmalls and wintry beaches; it's also the perfect metaphor for the hometown service economy that sustains most of the characters. Script avoids coming-of-age clichés; dialogue is funny and imaginative—a peculiar coworker is asked why he's hanging around the bowling center on his day off. He spreads his arms wide. "I like to stay in the realm," he says. The holiday reappearance of Sunny's "high school nemesis," already launched on a standup career in NYC, is the catalyst for the wispy plot. Strong supporting cast led by Marc Petersen as Sunny's father, Linda Lee McBride as her smart-mouthed BF and Ryan Hunter as the standup guy. Trieste Kelly Dunn projects intelligence and intensity by the bucketful; seems like she deserves more by now than just a steady gig on "Banshee."
Review of The New Year
The New Year
(2010)
Ignore all the one- or two-star reviews on Netflix; just read this one!
26 December 2013