Every year, there seems to be a — usually British — movie that gets completely overlooked, yet ends up being a beautifully heartwarming story — often being some sort of romcom or coming-of-age movie. 2025 had The Roses and, in some ways, Danny Dyer’s Marching Powder; 2024 gave us the — once again, Olivia Colman starring — Wicked Little Letters. I’d love to say Sunny Dancer is 2026’s movie, because it really tries to be, but unfortunately we’re still waiting.
Sunny Dancer is quite a simple, inoffensive, feel-good, coming-of-age story, with very little deviation. This gives you almost exactly what you’re expecting when you walk in. Of course, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it just doesn’t stand out in any way at all, aside from its subject matter centering around cancer.
Although this story rides entirely on the emotional distress and loneliness that something like cancer can cause a survivor, it doesn’t ride that wave nearly enough, taking away most of its uniqueness and what would draw a person to this in the first place. We’re essentially introduced to the fact that these characters have had cancer in the past, and delve hardly any deeper, aside from a few blink and you’ll miss it moments.
There’s a beautiful scene, around the start of the second act, in which the love between Bella Ramsey’s Ivy and Daniel Quinn-Toye’s Jake is beginning to show signs of blossoming. Jake pulls her aside and delves into her cancer journey slightly, asking what kind she experienced and how long she’s been in remission, at which point Ivy returns the questions. This scene is almost all I could think about when the movie ended because all I wanted was for us to see something like that with anyone else, especially Ivy’s roommate who we, somehow, learn almost nothing about.
None of these characters have much of an emotional pull because we don’t know their stories. Yes, we know they had cancer at some point, but how long have they been in remission? How close were they to death? What kind of cancer did they go through? How old are they or were they during treatment? These are all questions that felt necessary to have answers and, while we did get a few glimpses in passing, it wasn’t nearly enough.
If I’m to care about these characters I want to know their stories, especially things that could inform how they approach the subject matter or how much they’ve likely healed emotionally, such as how long they’ve been in remission. If somebody was given the all clear two months before joining camp, after previously being told they may have six months to live, I’m sure they’d feel differently about cancer than somebody who’s been in remission for five years and has never relapsed. Instead, it felt as if almost every single one of these characters were reduced to one or two traits; not to mention how simply annoying they all are. I didn’t care about any of them much because I didn’t like them.
After the aforementioned scene of Ivy and Jake first bonding after sneaking away from camp with the rest of the group, we see them be scolded by the camp leader. Presumably as punishment, Patrick tells the group that all activities are cancelled for the rest of the day, and I could think was: “what activities?”. We hardly ever actually see anything happening in the camp, the place that we spend the entire movie in, past the first ten minutes.
I would have liked for the first act to have consisted of much more of Ivy simply going through the motions of camp, or even doing anything at all. There could have just been a montage, after she first joins, of a few activities, showing their daily routine, as well as displaying Ivy as a loner or that her depressive state isn’t totally self-inflicted by showing how she doesn’t fit in with others. The only semblance of a routine we see is breakfast and Ivy’s therapy sessions, which we’re told happen an hour before breakfast, at 8:00am. This leaves, basically, the entire day blank, what are they doing?
Us seeing more of the day would have not only made Ivy feel much more developed as a character, but also made her finding her friends feel much more worthwhile — as we’ve just spent the last ten or so minutes seeing her fail to do so. Her transition into happiness wouldn’t have felt quite so sudden and I’d actually care about it. It also would’ve helped if they made the core group’s introduction frame them in a likeable manner — I can’t stress enough how much I disliked this group and they definitely ruined this movie for me, more than it already was.
For all my whining, I did love the final act. This twist came out of nowhere and felt so sudden — this time in a good way, as well as actually giving us the proper amount of time to digest the news we’ve just been given, not to mention seeing some incredible acting from Bella Ramsey to push our emotions over the edge. This twist was done amazingly, even if it is quite obvious in hindsight — due to the cut away once Patrick walks into Ivy’s room. Everything about it was executed perfectly, from the use of the memorial wall to Ivy lashing out after seeing it, even to the flashbacks — showing that Jake wasn’t really there.
Even with all my critiques, I’d still like to point out that I did enjoy this movie. Though I recognise that most of what I’ve said has been negative, this is still a beautiful story with some occasionally hard-hitting themes and a good amount of humour. It’s a nice day out and I’m sure it’ll make you feel a few things. So, even though I definitely wouldn’t recommend this over many of the powerhouses occupying cinemas lately, if you have time and you’ve already seen those, I wouldn’t discredit Sunny Dancer just yet — though I’m sure many of you will walk out wondering why it’s called that.