“Not everyone’s next chapter has to look the same,” says Wendy (Dakota Fanning) upon learning that her best friend is pregnant, while simultaneously defending her uncertain lot in life. Throughout the events of The Sun Never Sets, those words will be tested for Wendy in unexpected ways as she volleys back and forth between relationship prospects. The result is an emotionally honest romance that leans into romantic drama’s conventions but keeps its characters front and center, thanks to the best performance of Dakota Fanning’s career.

It’s difficult for any film to introduce a love triangle situation and sustain it successfully, but writer-director Joe Swanberg mostly makes the premise feel like a natural extension of its protagonist’s mindset. When The Sun Never Sets begins, Wendy is a construction worker in Anchorage, Alaska, aching to buy a particular boat that harkens back to her carefree childhood. She’s been in a stable, long-term relationship with Jack (Jake Johnson), a divorced father of two. With him, she’s able to have a comfortable place to call home without the fear of fully settling down (after his divorce, he has no desire to remarry or have more children). But after the aforementioned pregnancy announcement, and realizing that perhaps her friend group has seemingly got their lives all figured out without her, Wendy’s thrown into a kind of existential crisis.

Jack’s response is not to reassure her, but rather to demand that they take some time apart for her to try and figure her life out, and perhaps date around elsewhere. It’s never explicitly stated, but Jack’s significant age difference from Wendy implies that he went through a similar period around that time in his own life. Thus Wendy reluctantly tries dating, and soon runs into ex-boyfriend Chuck (Cory Michael Smith), who’s newly back in town to open an air taxi business, while in the middle of another date with someone else. Chuck is everything that Jack is not: impulsive, adventurous, immature. But just as everything is going well with Chuck, Jack’s jealousy quickly awakens, and Wendy is constantly questioning which man to gravitate towards.

Swanberg’s mumblecore-esque, improv-heavy approach to the dialogue is a double-edged sword here. It keeps the film light, and allows the actors to dig deeper into their characters. But The Sun Never Sets starts to feel repetitive as it goes on; every time it feels like the road is cleared for Wendy to return to Jack, some plot device or road block comes up to prevent it and keep the film going. Thankfully Swanberg doesn’t throw in any wacky shenanigans or misunderstandings, keeping the film grounded in reality. In fact, Wendy remains honest with both Jack and Chuck about her emotional state at all times, rather than bottling up her feelings until the third act. Still, it seems strange that the idea of the characters entering into an open relationship is never brought up as a possibility.

Fanning’s performance is, undoubtedly, the reason to see the film. Wendy never feels like someone who needs a man in order to feel complete; rather, she’s a restless woman unsure of which direction her life will take, afraid that if she makes the wrong choice, it’ll set her back for the foreseeable future. Fanning had her share of time as a child actor, but The Sun Never Sets allows her the room to craft a fully-realized character with an interiority that exists outside of the confines of the film.

At the very least, the film allows for the possibility of the romantic genre existing successfully without grand stakes or big, emotional moments. Those scenes exist within The Sun Never Sets, of course, but they’re much more grounded than similar 2026 offerings like One Night Only or Voicemails for Isabelle. Here is a film that treats its characters like real people, not simply ciphers for situations or ambitious statements about people as a whole. Sometimes this gamble can lead to a film feeling slight, like a waste of 102 minutes, but in Swanberg’s hands, the balance feels just right.

The Sun Never Sets is now in theaters nationwide.

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