Close to Sunset
Home movie footage has a way of evoking emotion. A grainy, colour faded moment captured in time. This is how Close to Sunset starts: a backyard; young brothers, Jack and Sam, fool for the camera. A fleeting memory of childhood innocence.
Cut to evening. Shadows grow over a public playground. A car prowls along an adjacent road. The boys play, each lost in a world of his own. Moments later, Jack looks up to find his brother gone. He squints into the setting sun - just in time to catch Sam wave goodbye before he slips into the car and vanishes forever.
Jump forward several decades. Jack, now in his 50s with a family of his own. It’s been a rough week for Jack. Mom’s dead. Her estate needs to be settled which leaves Jack and younger sister, Trisha, to clear the old family home for sale.
It’s a task fraught with emotion. The sting of memory carried with every trinket and family photograph. There’s that yellow dress of Mom’s or the grave of Houdini, beloved house-cat who was never fully tamed.
As Jack delves ever deeper into the shadows of Mom’s life, secrets begin to reveal themselves. Old wounds are opened and tensions rise until finally, Jack stumbles upon the darkest recess of them all...
But you'll have to read the full script to discover what that is.
Steven Clark’s haunting thriller Close to Sunset lights a fuse that burns to the very end. It’s a tense, brooding mystery, delivered with a subtlety that begs to be picked up. Any filmmaker looking for a low budget, nuanced thriller would be remiss not to check this script out immediately.