Sunshine in the Heart of Darkness

Sunshine is a visually transcendent film that will haunt me for a long to time to come. It is an affirmation of Danny Boyle as one of the top directors making movies today.

I had been looking forward to this movie last summer, but somehow managed to miss it in it's short art-house stay here in Denver.

If it doesn't involve zombies, I will always look out for a new Danny Boyle film. Sadly, Sunshine would have to wait until the DVD showed up.

It was worth the wait.

Hours later, despite the absolutely stunning visuals, I am touched by the surprisingly small movie Boyle has put together. It is a thoughtful and transcendent science fiction spectacle.

This story of a crew of astronauts racing towards our dying sun on a desperate final mission to save humanity in the end hinges on how drawn in you get into the individual characters.

In a way that other effects-laden apocalyptic thrillers rarely manage to do, Boyle invests you in the crew of the Icarus 2. As they face their fate daunting edge of searing solar heat and the frozen darkness of space, the movie focuses tightly on the seven individuals sent out on an impossible mission to save humanity

There are some weaker moments that might lose some people, especially as the film hurtles towards the end. At some points the movie stretches the grittier reality the movie goes to great lengths to establish earlier on.

Luckily I was already invested enough in the characters that I could overlook the momentary, if unfortunate, slips towards implausibility.

Much of that rests squarely on the shoulders of the brilliant Cillian Murphy. As a physicist carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, he is the emotional center a movie like this requires. As you are forced to juggle enormous concepts of science, religion and humanity in your head, it is his character that subtly manages to keep the movie grounded in the personal claustrophobia of a desperate mission.

The visuals are stunning. The movie soars, managing to convey the loneliness of empty space and a blinding, dying sun in a relatable way. Boyle's outer space is unrelenting and tightly focused. He smartly forgoes any hint of the enormity of the universe, using his effects instead to brilliantly define the high stakes mission of the Icarus 2.

In the end it is a small movie with big effects. At it's core you have seven characters bound together by fate, destiny and responsibility. Boyle and his solid cast manage to create real stakes and real repercussions that bind them together.

Sunshine is an amazing movie, but it is not an easy ride. It forces you to make some leaps of faith in order to get to the very satisfying ending in the heart of darkness. The end result, though, is a confident film by a director who continues to engage me after all these years.

I look very much forward to seeing what Danny Boyle does next.