Jake Johnson and director Joe Swanberg have reunited once again for ‘The Sun Never Sets’, a funny, complicated, and at times painful story about what happens when love simply isn’t enough.
Set against the vast backdrop of Alaska, the film follows Wendy (Dakota Fanning) after her boyfriend Jack (Johnson), a divorced father, asks her to reconsider their relationship due to their age difference and future plans. In the break that follows, Wendy reconnects with her ex, Chuck (Cory Michael Smith), setting the three of them on an emotionally messy collision course.
The plot is loosely based on some of Swanberg’s life, mixed in with collaborative input from both Johnson and Fanning.
“Those [early conversations] informed a lot, because a lot of the things that Jack does in this movie, I don't have any connection to. It's not stuff I could relate to, and it’s not behavior that I've done or felt like me. But Joe really could [connect],” Johnson explains.
“We've worked together so much now. And a big part of being an actor is you either trust your director or your showrunner, or you don't. If you don't, you can't really fake it, because then you've got to kind of do your own thing. But I really trust Joe. So for me, it was really, let's figure out what would work opposite Dakota so she could play Wendy and something Wendy might like in Jack. And then the rest of it was leaning into Joe's instincts.”
For Johnson and his longtime collaborator, the film represented a chance to push beyond what they had done together before (which includes 2013’s ‘Drinking Buddies’ and 2017’s ‘Win It All’). Alaska offered a bigger canvas and production moved from 16mm to 35mm for this particular feature. But Swanberg’s organic style of filming has remained the same.
“The dialogue is improvised, but Joe is very clear with what he wants. You rehearse it and once you rehearse it, he'll have ideas for you,” notes Johnson.
“A lot of times you'll go and do a scene and you'll have it all memorized and you'll do it. But if the scene doesn't work on set, the director and the writer and the actors change it—then you’re improvising and finding it together. At that point, once you find it, you lock it in and then shoot it. Joe's process is the same as that, but rather than a script, you're starting with a long conversation and an outline. But then outside of that, it feels more traditional. You just don't have that script to study the night before.”
That collaborative process seems especially fitting for this film, which is built around characters who are constantly trying to talk their way toward answers.
As Wendy and Jack’s separation unfolds, and Wendy’s renewed relationship with Chuck grows more complicated, the film expands beyond a conventional love triangle into a story about competing needs and desires. As Johnson puts it, by the time Swanberg calls “action,” the actors may not know exactly what they’re going to say, but they already know where they are emotionally.
“When you shoot a movie with Joe, after work, you're together all the time. You're constantly talking about the movie and the scenes and the backstory and what's happening,” finishes Johnson.
“So those scenes would come out of long conversations where Joe is really just talking over and over about where he thinks the [characters] are in this moment. So you're emotionally there when you're starting. But you both already 100% know the intentions. It just takes a couple of rehearsals to find some of the dialogue to start the scene. The only thing that you’re unsure of is when they say action, what you're going to say first.”
‘The Sun Never Sets’ hits theaters Sept. 4.
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