Sweet Sunshine Parent Guide

TJ Millhouse (John Way) is an aspiring musician with a talent for songwriting. His father, Hank (Rob Edwards), doesn’t approve and warns him against ruining his life. But when TJ is discovered, he becomes famous almost overnight, leading to a rift between father and son. After personal tragedy strikes, TJ meets Sunshine (Savannah McMahon), a down-on-her-luck woman with a love of music. The two of them learn together what it means to believe in yourself and do what you love.

Sweet Sunshine gave me an opportunity to play my favorite viewing game: Predict that Cliché! That’s where I see a trope or cliché or lazy plot point coming a mile away and I shout it at the screen until it happens and then I cheer. Usually it just consists of me yelling, “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” at the TV all alone in my living room. Weird, I know, but I enjoy it. This film is full of lazy writing and every single event is predictable and unoriginal. You know exactly what is going to happen next at any given moment, including what should have been the bigger twists. That said, does that make Sweet Sunshine terrible? Not necessarily. Yes, it is unimaginative, but there is something comforting about sitting down to a movie that you know is not going to surprise you or make you think too hard.

I’m usually a sucker for a movie with lots of music, and Sweet Sunshine really delivers in that area. The songs are surprisingly good, even for a country-music hater like myself. This is not a musical by any means, but it has a plot that centers around music, so there are lots of great songs scattered throughout. John Way’s singing voice is much better than expected for a low budget production such as this, and the original lyrics are sweet and uplifting for the most part.

There is no getting around the terrible acting in this film. I can’t say that any of the performances are even passably good, and most are laughably bad. It gets distracting sometimes, but it also adds to the downhome charm that permeates the production.

Overall this is a middling movie for me. It’s not a great film by any stretch but it’s also not terrible. If I could describe it in one word it would be “meh”. If you’re looking for something relatively family friendly that won’t make you want to claw your eyes out, Sweet Sunshine is worth considering.