Sunset on the River Styx – review

Director: Aaron Pagniano

Release date: 2020

Contains spoilers

This is quite an arty film that plays around with time and leaves it to the viewer to understand what is going on with it. As such it could have gone very wrong but an intelligent format and some very good use of editing means that it maintains its narrative thread.

It is, ultimately, a love story but that aspect doesn’t overpower the story and the characters are intriguing enough to keep the viewer interested.

Will's life

It begins with flashes of imagery including fangs and then we are with Will (Phillip Andre Botello), a bus driver who is not happy in his life. We see him notice a woman, Ashe (Jacqueline Jandrell), in his mirror as she sits on the bus. We can hear a passenger moaning publicly, passengers get on and off and she is gone. We see his life, repeating with enduring monotony. At one point we see him stood on his roof, he drops a watch and seems to be contemplating jumping but steps away and back into the grind.

Jacqueline Jandrell as Ashe

Ashe gets on his bus and uses change, rather than a pass card as most use, he comments on it being unusual and when she questions him, he says he was referring to her bracelet. They chat. However there is a passenger causing a scene. He mentions to her he’d like to punch him before going to confront the passenger and tell him to leave the bus. The passenger becomes mouthier and pushes him and so he punches the man and bundles him off the bus. As he reaches the next stop Ashe departs but he summons the courage to ask her on a date and she agrees.

the driver's mirror

So we see their blossoming romance through his eyes. Ashe reacts badly on a date to an aquarium – though he does not know why – but they meet again. Her outlook could often be said to be nihilistic, however Will’s demeanour and outlook is actually buoyed by her. In bed she opens a bedside cabinet and sees his prescription pills and quickly shuts it but then shows him the cutting scars under a bracelet. She asks him whether he would want to {kill himself} with her. He reacts by running to the bathroom and being sick.

blood fountain

He rings her eventually and agrees... she knows just the place. She gives him directions to a house; a party seems to be in full swing and some of the attendees wear strange masks. He finds her in there – he feels this was all a bit public for a suicide pact. There is a fountain that seems to cycle blood and a charismatic young man, Wreck (Cory Vaughn), addresses everyone. Ashe takes Will to meet Wreck but Will then asks to speak to her. She is, he realises, with Wreck but he confesses his love anyway. For her part she suggests she doesn’t feel the same about Will, that he is a friend and eventually tells him not to spoil the night for her. Will, for his part, goes to the fountain, drinks from it without invitation, in flashes we see him swaying, knocking the fountain over, being grabbed and thrown from the house into the river below…

Wreck and Ashe

Then we seem to be back at the beginning of the film and following it through Ashe’s eyes and, through that, see how she met Wreck and eventually we get back to the same point and from there watch how the story will be resolved. However Wreck is a vampire and his plan was to turn several people (the party guests) before moving on to another city. The turning process involves being bitten and drinking vampire blood (the blood in the fountain had some of his blood but also donor blood). Because Will drank blood but has not been bitten he is unstuck in time and will eventually die, and the third act of the film – as it were – sees him bouncing between scenarios and moments.

fangs

It is in that unstuck moment were the editing was vitally important and it is masterfully done, slowly revealing to Will what is happening as he moves through time and space and done in such a way that at first it is (deliberately) confusing for the viewer, as much as it is for Will, but the explanation builds over the scenes as they move up to the point where we get it and Will can use the time phenomena to his advantage. The three primary performances also help this work – with Will and Ashe, in particular, working really well as characters and the underpinning performances feeling natural and drawing us into their worlds even though their worlds are not the happiest.

Cory Vaughn as Wreck

The film is not going to be for everyone. For some reason the character Wreck felt like he had emerged from Twixt even though the films do not share atmosphere, Twixt being a grand gothic dream where this is much more gritty, nihilistic and grounded (despite the time fluctuations). If you are in the mood for a dark, character driven art film this might be for you,  6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.