Sunny Dancer (15)

Seventeen-year-old Ivy is 10 months into leukaemia remission but has yet to rediscover her joyful spark or re-establish friendships with people her age. Her parents intervene and sign her up for a four-week summer camp for children who have been touched by cancer, in the Scottish Highlands, run by director Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris) and his team. Ivy is openly hostile to Children Run Free's mandated cheerfulness but she gradually befriends her cabin roommate Ella and some of the other campmates.

LondonNet Film Review

Sunny Dancer (15) Film Review from LondonNet

Life is how you mix it. During a moment of emotional vulnerability in Sunny Dancer, a trained therapist likens the act of grief counselling to making a glass of fruit cordial. Each session adds water to feelings of sadness and regret, reducing the intense pain until, eventually, they become tolerable. The drinks-making analogy applies just as well to writer-director George Jaques’ coming-of-age drama. The filmmaker starts strongly, serving many of his most impactful scenes in the opening hour, but dilutes a life-affirming message with predictable narrative choices in the final stretch…

His spirited heroine is 17-year-old Ivy (Bella Ramsey), who has been supported by her parents, Bob (James Norton) and Karen (Jessica Gunning), as she suffered from leukaemia. She is now 10 months into remission but has yet to rediscover her joyful spark or re-establish friendships with people her age. Her parents intervene and sign her up for a four-week summer camp for children who have been touched by cancer, in the Scottish Highlands, run by director Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris) and his team.

Ivy is openly hostile to Children Run Free’s mandated cheerfulness and camaraderie, but she gradually befriends her cabin roommate Ella (Ruby Stokes), who plans to lose her virginity to dreamy activities director Tristan (Louis Gaunt). Ella introduces Ivy to her inner circle of returning faces: Archie (Conrad Khan), Jake (Daniel Quinn-Toye), Maisie (Jasmine Elcock) and Ralph (Earl Cave). As the summer unfolds, Ivy’s resistance softens and she becomes a carefree, rebellious and fun-loving child again. She also experiences a frisson of sexual attraction to blue-eyed softie Jake and learns valuable life lessons from no-nonsense nurse Brenda (Josie Walker) and camp counsellor Lucy (Shalom Brune-Franklin).

Shot on location at Auchengillan Outdoor Centre near Loch Lomond in Scotland, and rugged surrounding areas, Sunny Dancer bullishly tackles sensitive themes with potty-mouthed wit and unvarnished candour, channelling outbursts of rage and dismay through Ramsey’s guilt-riddled heroine. Harris’s potentially throwaway supporting character delivers a dizzying sledgehammer blow that allows him to showcase his acting chops.

Stokes provides injections of broad comic relief and Jaques’ script manages to sidestep dramatic landmines of his own making by imagining a forthright 17-year-old character who actively pursues a 24-year-old man. Ramsey’s screen chemistry with Quinn-Toye is sweet and their respectfully staged scenes of intimacy capture the innocent awkwardness and impatience of youth. Jaques presses the play button on the film’s exuberant anthem, I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’ by Scissor Scissors, one time too many and he telegraphs the film’s ending through a metaphorical megaphone, preparing us so far in advance for the fallout that attention is drawn too readily to his screenwriting sleight of hand. If you already know the final reveal, you pay closer to attention to how the trick is done.

– Kim Hu