On the day of Jacob’s (Nick Robinson) film premier he returns home to be with his family. Cole (Alden Ehrenreich), his older brother, is struggling to come to terms with simply existing in the background. Now prepared to steal and sell Jacob’s computer for a handsome profit, Cole must deal with the reality of both his and Jacob’s situation. Shadow Brother Sunday is a story of jealousy, vengeance, and love.
It’s incredibly interesting when someone who is part of the filmmaking industry attempts to expose the industry’s flaws. That’s effectively what Ehrenreich is doing in Shadow Brother Sunday. As the film barrels forward, viewers are made privy to the struggles that actors and their families face as a result of their job, and I think he does a really good job of laying things out in a way that causes us not to question the film’s validity but to see the individuals as real people. We often find it difficult to separate actors from their profession (as we do with many professions), and they ultimately land on some sort of pedestal where individuals like you and I struggle to understand their struggles–but Shadow Brother Sunday does a really good job of leveling the playing field here, inviting viewers in, and allowing them to truly understand what Cole and Jacob are experiencing throughout.
At one point in the film a character makes a comment about Cole’s jacket about how it makes him look like a school shooter. The comment isn’t far off, but it’s used to be more of a comedic device. Cole wears this jacket throughout the course of Shadow Brother Sunday and it’s used to separate him from the bunch, to make it abundantly clear that Cole is different from the rest of the family. It’s a simple addition to the character, and it plays other roles as well, but visually it works wonders for the film. From the second viewers see Cole, from the first time he steps on screen, we are made aware of his differences, of the fact that he doesn’t fit in–and as Shadow Brother Sunday progresses, this tidbit of information is made more and more clear.
This allows drama to develop, emotion to rise to the surface, and it’s honestly a major plot point that allows the film to continue to progress at an effective rate. A jacket doesn’t seem like much, but it just might be the most important part of the entire production.
Cole and Jacob’s relationship is left hanging in the balance. In their final exchange, the brothers are seen looking at one another with a combination of emotions. Fear, surprise, love, and more take the stage in the final seconds of the film (as they had throughout Shadow Brother Sunday–but now in a more condensed fashion), and viewers are left to, as the film turns to black, wade in the pool of emotions that they have been left with. We aren’t sure what is going to happen next, whether the brothers will rectify their tattered relationship, or if it will simply fall apart. Seconds, minutes, even hours later I contemplated the consequences of what was depicted in the final seconds of the film. Still, now, I keep going back to those closing seconds, trying to figure out what might happen next–and I love that this scene is stuck in my head.
Shadow Brother Sunday ended, and I uttered the following words to myself: “...beautiful, fucking brilliant.” There’s so many moving parts to this film, and the words I could come up with, because I was absolutely mesmerized, were those aforementioned words. To put me at a loss for words, to be able to, even for a second, put me in a state of utter adoration is one hell of a feat, and Shadow Brother Sunday does just that. At a time when the industry is under scrutiny, when it’s constantly being questioned, this film fits right into the fold. Beyond that, however, Shadow Brother Sunday is a beautiful representation of sibling rivalry, familial struggles, and the difficulties of the world in which we live.
Written & Directed by Alden Ehrenreich.
Starring Alden Ehrenreich, Nick Robinson, Lisa Edelstein, Nick Searcy, Jacob Wysocki, etc.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐½/10
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