Mumblecore never went away. Arguably the most influential movement in American cinema during the 21st century, it birthed careers for Mark and Jay Duplass, Greta Gerwig (Barbie), Noah Baumbach (Jay Kelly), Alex Ross Perry (Pavements), Sean Price Williams (The Sweet East), Adam Wingard (Onslaught) and, among many, many others, Joe Swanberg. Mumblecore’s influence as a tonic to the high-paced, ultra-seductive Hollywood of Y2K has perhaps not been properly explored. Those films that were attached to the movement between the years of 2002 and 2012 seemed to make essential once again the immediacy and intimacy of the American independent spirit, the fly by night brilliance of New Hollywood and John Cassavettes, an ethos won on the demise of studio epics and lost again on the rising tide of Star Wars and Jaws sequel fever. By the turn of the century, there had to be a reaction. With a Dogme 95-esque insistence on low budgets and low-fi technology — often out of necessity — and emphasis on slow, naturalistic scenes in familiar settings, mumblecore helped reshape the trajectory of American independent cinema.
By the early 2010s, many of the films and filmmakers of the scene, at one time seemingly fringe, were now hip. Baumbach’s Frances Ha, Amy Seimetz’ Sun Don’t Shine, Joe Swanberg’s Drinking Buddies and All the Light in the Sky (all 2013): all were beginning to hit more major screens, and feature A-list or nearing-A-list talent. Looking back, one can see a chain reaction, an interconnected spoked-wheel spreading outward from the early hubs of mumblecore in New York and Chicago. The Hollywood of today, increasingly directed by ever growing “independent” film companies, is full of former indie-sleaze “rebels” from the aughts. The “indies” have gone mainstream, for better or worse, and mumblecore played an undeniably large part in that. After all, the Best Picture win for Sean Baker’s Anora owes something to Andrew Bujalski’s Funny Ha Ha (2002).
Joe Swanberg is more independent than most. He has kept a consistent schedule since the mid-2000s, and released a film each year from 2006 to 2016. His budgets have grown, and he’s worked with objectively bankable stars since 2013 — Anna Kendrick and Jake Johnson becoming repeat collaborators — but he hasn’t “graduated” from mumblecore, exactly. His most recent film prior to 2026, in fact, was Build the Wall (2020), a 57-minute low-budget comedy which continued a niche mumblecore saga that began with Uncle Kent (2011). Swanberg hasn’t severed his roots in the way of some of the scene’s others, and he still makes — essentially — the same films, with the same aesthetic ethos and dramatic impulse. The delicate themes of relationship trouble, commitment issues, infidelity, and parenthood (among other, more specific needlings), arise across his oeuvre, from the lo-fi Marriage Material (2012), to the four-way rom-com Drinking Buddies (2013) starring Olivia Wilde, to his latest, The Sun Never Sets, starring Dakota Fanning and Jake Johnson.
The Sun Never Sets is Swanberg’s fourth collaboration with actor, writer, and producer Jake Johnson, after Drinking Buddies (2013), Digging for Fire (2015), and Win it All (2017). It’s his second with Eon Mora as director of photography. Swanberg has been something of a savant, at times a one-man (or one-man, one-woman) production company. He has starred in his own films; he has photographed his own films — often than once. He continues to write and edit his films. Yet the influence of Johnson and others — Jane Adams was a frequent and influential collaborator previously — has given Swanberg’s projects a greater heft. His efforts over the last 15 years have rather naturally developed a new, and more polished, flavor via collaboration. The early mumblecore films were arguably experimental, pulling more from James Benning and Bertolt Brecht than from Cameron Crowe. They were shot somewhat roughly in raw, early video without additional lighting or accoutrements. They could be called “ugly,” or more politely naturalistic, and scenes were often slow and static. If the camera moved — though it often didn’t in Swanberg’s films — it would be handheld and frantic. The mumblecore filmmakers were unapologetic; perhaps not as devilishly hardnosed as Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, but they stuck to their guns, and ambitions, with a verve not dissimilar from the Dogme 95 manifesto. And, likewise not unlike the Dogme filmmakers, they ultimately relinquished some of that dogmatism as their budgets grew.
So where does Swanberg’s flavor of mumblecore land in 2026? The Sun Never Sets is neat and professional, well-lit and balanced — a “proper” movie, just like the director’s been releasing since 2013. The film’s narrative follows suits, following a couple — Wendy (Dakota Fanning) and her older, divorced-with-kids boyfriend Jack (Jake Johnson) — as they navigate a break in their relationship troubled by the the insinuation of an ex, Chuck (Cory Michael Smith). But Swanberg has kept hold of his outsider ambitions. In tackling familiar narrative material, the film nonetheless feels distinctly loose and off-the-cuff, even though it’s clearly rather composed, prepped, and rehearsed. Interior scenes seem to be lit for various angles, mimicking the available light in order to allow for natural, roaming camerawork, delivering a casual but well-mannered naturalism. Outdoors, the omnipresent sun of the Alaskan summer beats down relentlessly on Wendy’s (Fanning) blonde hair, a harsh, hard light that recalls the aesthetic rawness of Swanberg’s earlier films. If nothing else, Swanberg remainds dedicated to naturalism, and specifically a ruthless naturalism that doesn’t allow for needless beautifying. This extends to the film’s production design and art direction, which in early mumblecore films was more likely to be a part of casting and location scouting: whatever someone might have in their apartment, or in their backyard, whatever was found in the scenery, became part of the movie. Swanberg’s recent films seem to recreate that immediacy. Wendy’s apartment is the quintessential millennial professional’s apartment in a smaller American city. Other locations are suburban but tasteful, showcasing the outdoorsy thirtysomething population of a city like Anchorage. The visual language of Joe Swanberg’s films — and this is part of his brilliance — is so relatable that it becomes nearly invisible.
What is visible is the drama. The Sun Never Sets delivers mature, thoughtful relationship drama via loose, chatty scenes which develop into a tangle of complicated, confused emotions: adults, or near adults — or not-quite-actually adults — talking earnestly and openly about relationships, dating, marriage, parenting, often with thorny consequences. That’s Swanberg’s recipe, and he hasn’t deviated from it with his latest. Indeed, even now, with more resources, he takes a very similar approach to the script and working with performers. Everything moves more quickly, more sleekly, but the underlying ethos is the same. The Sun Never Sets will be an easy favorite for those looking for a throwback relationship drama, something with heavy themes that remains playful and snappy. Johnson and Fanning share a strong dynamic, with believable chemistry, and the electrical jolts that arise when watching them face-plant into awkwardness is worth the price of admission alone. In the end, it seems everything happens for a reason, but along the way it’s funny, cringy, heartbreaking, familiar, and never, ever boring.
DIRECTOR: Joe Swanberg; CAST: Dakota Fanning, Jake Johnson, Cory Michael Smith, Debby Ryan, Anna Konkle; DISTRIBUTOR: Independent Film Company; IN THEATERS: August 28; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 42 min.
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