Sunlight Jr.

Living in a shabby motel in central Florida and working as a cashier at the titular convenience store, Melissa (Naomi Watts) loves Richie (Matt Dillon), a former TV repairman confined to a wheelchair since a motorcycle accident left his legs paralyzed. Subsisting on her minimum-wage paycheck and his meager disability benefits, the pair relish frequent sexual interludes, along with drinking whiskey and smoking cigarettes. Among their many problems, Melissa's menacing ex-boyfriend (Norman Reedus) stalks her. Unfortunately, Melissa can't avoid him because he's also the intimidating landlord to her alcoholic mother (Tess Harper), whose bedbug-infested house overflows with foster children. Adding to her angst, Melissa discovers that she's pregnant, and while the couple would love to get married and have the baby, they cannot afford it. More complications arise when Melissa's bullying boss (Antoni Corone) gives her the graveyard shift. Pressures continue to mount until they are evicted and their situation grows even more intolerable. Inspired by Barbara Ehrenreich's 2011 nonfiction book Nickel and Dimed, which offers a close-up look at America's working-class poor, Sunlight Jr. is written and directed by Laurie Collyer, who is clearly attempting to evoke a sense of the shattered American Dream. Unfortunately, Watts is far too regal to be even remotely convincing as someone long trapped in a bleak cycle of scarcity, and Dillon too seems way out of his element. Sobering, depressing, and tedious, the film offers no balance to its unresolved adversities and overwhelming despair. Optional, at best. (S. Granger)