There aren’t many movies merrily described by their writer/director as the “most naughty, feral, fucking crazy ensemble film about a group of kids in remission who go to a summer camp and all they want to do is takes loads of drugs and have a fun time.”
But then there aren’t many filmmakers like 25-year-old Brit George Jaques, who opens the Berlinale’s Generation 14plus strand with his sophomore feature “Sunny Dancer,” a coming-of-age comedy that, as per its more diplomatically worded official synopsis, “takes a refreshing, uplifting and surprising approach to the teenage cancer story.” It’s also a film that has probably the highest laugh-to-cry count of any recent title, provoking cheers and tears sometimes multiple times in the space of just seconds.
Shot in Scotland and led by Bella Ramsey, “Sunny Dancer” follows Ivy, a grumpy 17-year-old who has beaten leukemia but is now struggling to embrace what should be her rebellious adolescence. Sent by her loving parents (Jessica Gunning and James Norton) to what she bills as a “Chemo Camp” for kids in remission, Ivy eventually finds a group of misfit friends and a renewed lust for life — plus sex, booze and drugs. And yet, as her happiness finally soars, she’s still forced to deal with the reality that this is a life that can be cruelly snatched away at any moment.
Inspired to make the film by both his mother who had battled cancer and his editor who told him she’d attended a similar camp for kids herself, Jaques found himself on a three-day retreat called “Find Your Sense of Tumor” and in hospitals where teenagers would tell him about racing down corridors with their IV drips and “getting their first hand job” in a ward.
“It really hit me that these young people were so much more interesting than their diagnoses,” he says. So Jaques set out to make a film that wasn’t “patronizing” to younger audiences or part of a “weird sub-genre of films about cancer,” and one that — crucially — didn’t feature any scenes of sick-looking kids lying on hospital beds.
He also wanted to bring back the “ensemble energy” of 1980s movie, such as “The Breakfast Club,” and to put what he describes as “the coolest young actors” together. Alongside Ramsey, the riotous camp gang includes rising Brit stars Daniel Quinn-Toye (“Voltron”), Ruby Stokes (“Rocks”), Earl Cave (“The Sweet East”), Conrad Khan (“County Lines”) and newcomer Jasmine Elcock.
“Fat chance” thought Jaques when Ramsey was first pitched for the lead, acknowledging that, off the back of “The Last of Us,” they were “possibly the most famous young person on the planet.” But he sent a hopeful letter and his sizzle reel (which included a “crap camp video” spliced with a popular meme of Joe Pesci saying “What the fuck is this piece of shit?”). They got on a call, had a chat about life. Ramsey was on board.
To anyone who knows Jaques, regularly called a “force of nature,” this may all sound fairly standard. Having fully adopted the “If you don’t ask, you don’t get” philosophy, the enthusiastic young filmmaker’s ability to draw people into his creative orbit is something to be marvelled at. And it didn’t stop with Ramsey.
Leading the camp is its wonderfully cringe and frequent dad joke-delivering president Patrick, played by Neil Patrick Harris. The Emmy winner was another long-shot casting punt, quickly charmed over a Zoom call. “He’s like family to me now — I stayed with him in New York,” says Jaques (who, through his fashion contacts, has since helped his new friend get kitted out in Hermès for the Berlinale premiere). Unsurprisingly the two are already plotting more projects together.
Later in the film, musician James Blunt appears in a comically self-effacing cameo playing his hit song “You’re Beautiful,” a casting that effectively began when Jaques was a teenager himself and happened to start chatting to Blunt’s manager in his local pub. Almost a decade on, having kept the number, he gave the guy a call. Remember me? He did, and arranged a Zoom with Blunt.
“He was amazing, and just the kindest man — and he came and did it all for free!” he says. “I remember looking at my monitor, and there was Neil Patrick Harris in there, plus James Norton and Jess Gunning, and then James Blunt singing ‘You’re Beautiful,’ and I thought, what the fuck, this is mental. I don’t actually know how I did this.”
Blunt may have sung on screen, but he didn’t compose the soundtrack. That — of course — was another music star, Este Haim of the sister trio Haim.
“No fucking way is a Grammy-nominated artist gonna do this,” Jaques says was his initial reaction when the two were connected via his manager. But Haim read the script, spoke to the filmmaker and, like everyone else, was convinced to join the party. “She was like, ‘George, I’m actually Type 1 diabetic, and I used to go on diabetes camps’ and I just knew then she was in… and then she brought on co-composer Zachary Dawes, who’s Lana Del Rey’s bassist.”
Then there was Alison Goldfrapp, who just happened to be sitting next to Jaques at a gig and, after he asked, gave him the rights to use “Ooh La La” in the film for free.
“It’s hard to make these indies, so we need as much support as we can get,” says the filmmaker about his delightfully ballsy approach. “Because this type of film doesn’t get made that much anymore. Gone are the days of ‘Juno’ and “About Time’ and all those beautiful films that were being made left, right and center.”
But through Jaques determination and his ever-expanding address book of industry contacts — plus the support of Embankment Films, which got behind the project from a very early stage — “Sunny Dancer” did get made. And it may now serve as a spot of timely counter-programming in Berlin, a film set in summer (it shockingly didn’t rain once during filming in Scotland) and emanating enough warmth to help combat the cold outside.
Because while “Sunny Dancer” may be a feature about a terrible killer disease, and is understandably tinged with moments of extreme sadness, it’s also filled with an abundance of loud and chaotic youthful joy (and some seriously un-PC jokes about cancer).
During the shoot, with the help of Harris, the cast went to see Kylie Minogue perform at the start of her world tour, and afterwards went backstage to meet the singer.
Few would be shocked if Minogue were to appear in Jaques’s next film, whatever fucking crazy idea that might be about.
English (US) ·