Growing up Between Docks and Doorways

Read Time:5 Minute, 48 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake)
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Genre: Drama, Anthology, Coming-of-Age
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 1h 27m
Director(s): Sierra Falconer
Writer(s): Sierra Falconer
Cast: Maren Heary, Jim Kaplan, Karsen Liotta, Dominic Bogart, Emily Hall, Tenley Kellogg, Marceline Hugot, Adam LeFevre, Wayne Duvall
Where to Watch: available digitally on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Fandango at Home starting November 4, 2025

RAVING REVIEW: SUNFISH (& OTHER STORIES ON GREEN LAKE) is a soft-spoken anthology with a backbone. It moves with the logic of a true summer—people arrive, drift into each other’s worlds, and leave changed in ways they won’t fully understand until later. Across four interlocking stories, the film treats the lake not as scenery but as the constant: a place where lessons are learned, responsibilities sneak up on kids and adults alike, and every victory feels earned because it’s so small you could miss it if you blinked. Sierra Falconer writes and directs with a confidence that favors presence over plot; the film is less about what happens than how it settles in your chest after.

The first story is the clearest example of how this design works. A girl comes to the water with more baggage than she knows how to carry, and the film refuses to solve for her. Instead, it tracks the incremental ways routine—rigging a sail, reading wind, failing and trying again—becomes relief. Falconer trusts physical tasks to tell the emotional story: repetition builds competence, competence builds a kind of peace, and peace lets a kid look up and realize she’s not just surviving the summer anymore. This approach is refreshingly practical, enabling the performance to breathe. Maren Heary plays the role with alertness; every small choice feels like one she’s argued herself into.

The second chapter delves into competition and performance without succumbing to melodrama. A boy at arts camp chases first chair like it’s the last lighthouse on the lake. Jim Kaplan anchors the segment with a steady, sincere presence; you sense the pressure without the film turning the entire day into a contest. Falconer keeps the emphasis on preparation and ritual—tuning, practicing, listening—which gives the music a lived-in context. The story lands because it understands the difference between winning and belonging; it’s less about trophies than earning the right to hear yourself differently.

The third entry is the swing. Falconer risks a taller tale: a fisherman and a young mother caught between mischief and myth. The pivot is intentional—it cracks the anthology open to possibility—but it’s also where cohesion loosens. The performances (Dominic Bogart and Emily Hall among them) bring humor and a touch of wonder. Yet, the structure leans on a storytelling mode that doesn’t harmonize as naturally with the quieter realism of the first half. The segment is enjoyable on its own terms and provides the film with a playful middle movement, but it briefly disrupts the overall experience.

The final chapter brings the ensemble back to the shoreline that matters most. Two sisters hovering on the edge of adulthood run a bed-and-breakfast while pretending time isn’t moving. Karsen Liotta and Tenley Kellogg share a natural, affectionate shorthand—small glances that feel like family. Falconer gives them chores and checklists to work through while the bigger conversation circles, then breaks through in a way that’s tender without being precious. The film ends where it should: with love described by actions, not speeches, and a goodbye that feels more like a promise than an ending.

Falconer’s choices behind the scenes keep the anthology coherent even when the tones stretch. She favors practical transitions—stitching stories together with shared spaces, background faces, and the lake’s daily rhythm. You recognize boats and porches from earlier segments; you hear an instrument warming up in one scene and understand why the next character needs silence. Connective tissue is a part of ordinary life, and the film trusts you to notice. That attention to lived detail is where SUNFISH finds its grace.

There’s a version of this project that could also flourish as a limited series, allowing each story to breathe a little longer and enabling the third entry to plant its seeds earlier. Even at 87 minutes, the anthology format condenses a great deal of life into a brief window. Expanding the canvas wouldn’t mean more plot—it would mean room for the same ordinary rituals to accumulate weight. That’s not a knock on what’s here; it’s a recognition that Falconer’s method—patient, observant, anchored in routine—can scale beautifully.

SUNFISH (& OTHER STORIES ON GREEN LAKE) is assured and deeply humane. It resists the temptation to overemphasize drama or underscore its themes. It prioritizes proximity over spectacle and trusts its audience to make the connections. When it hits, it does so with a quiet certainty that rings true. When it wobbles, it’s because the anthology format always asks storytellers to be four for four. Falconer goes three-for-four with the kind of poise that makes the whole feel more than the tally.

By the end, the lake has done its work. Not by delivering miracles, but by giving people a place to practice who they want to be. The film closes on a note that feels like late summer: full of warmth, edged with the knowledge that everything is about to change. That feeling sticks. A promising start for a filmmaker who knows that small stories, told with care, can reach farther than they look from the dock.

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[photo courtesy of TRIBECA FILMS]

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