Sunshine: Film by Danny Boyle
Review of Sci-Fi Thriller Starring Cillian Murphy and Chris Evans
Director Danny Boyle's epic new film, Sunshine, has an ensemble cast including Michelle Yeoh among others, and is a beautiful and an introspective thrill ride.
From the very beginning of Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, the sun is just as integral a character as Cappa (Cillian Murphy), Corazon (Michelle Yeoh), Mace (Chris Evans) or the rest of the brilliantly selected cast. With the Icarus II ship flying its course straight towards the sun, Boyle makes it look like the Icarus is the retina and the sun is an eyeball; it’s watching you.
The sun takes on a God-like persona – the crew onboard the Icarus II must learn to both love and fear the shining star.
The Story
The mission of the Icarus itself is pretty daunting, as they’re driving a Manhattan-sized bomb straight into the sun in order to reignite the dying star and end the solar winter that threatens to destroy life on Earth. Along the way, a series of unfortunate events pile up, forcing the crew to make an unexpected rendezvous with the floating Icarus I, a ship that attempted the same mission seven years earlier but failed. This fatal detour causes even more problems, as the crew of eight no longer have enough oxygen to last them the return trip home.
The Righteous Sun
The whole time, though, the sun is watching. Many times, the crew is reminded “We are nothing but stardust.” The sun becomes the source of both life and death for many of the crew members; the start and end of life. Cliff Curtis as Searle best represents this mystification when he, like Icarus, becomes obsessed with watching the sun all the time.
Every character has their own demons to fight, their own psychological onslaught to deal with and their own way to get through it. After 16 months, the stress and psychological torment starts to take its toll – and Boyle gives each character enough attention for the viewer to sympathize with them, even though the scenario they find themselves in is completely unimaginable to any of our minds.
Tension Rises
A key reason why Boyle is able to accomplish this is his ability to create a claustrophobic atmosphere and tension amongst the characters. After all, these are eight people stuck together for 16 months floating through space on a mission to save the planet – stress of all kinds is inevitable. Various camera techniques like close-ups, blurs, flashes and sudden stops keep your heart pumping, leaving you in a constant state of panic.
The score also lets you into their minds. The music is at first calming and splendid – like the soothing sounds of a rainforest – but as the crew draws closer to the sun, the music transforms into an industrial thundering crash, the intensity continuing to rise until you just can’t breathe anymore.
Sunshine is gory, but beautiful; stressful, but calming; dark and light. For a science fiction movie, it very accurately depicts why we live our everyday lives – the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful - with our very source of life at the centre of it all.
