By Simon Thompson
Co-director and writer Rob Cousineau’s So Fades The Light is a meandering and obvious viewing experience sadly devoid of any atmosphere or intrigue. While the films small town rural American setting makes for some beautiful exterior nature shots, that simply isn’t enough to make up for the narrative flaws.
The plot of So Fades The Light follows Sun ( Kiley Lotz), a child trapped in a cult named the Iron and Fire Ministry – a half Peoples Temple, half QAnon, gun-toting religious extremist group. Sun is freed when a SWAT team storm their compound, killing dozens of members and capturing and then imprisoning the group’s leader, the Reverend ( D. Duke Solomon).
Fifteen years later, Sun, now living a traumatised hermit-like existence in a camper van, decides to return to the compound and confront her childhood demons head-on. What she doesn’t know, however, is that the Reverend has been newly released from prison and that he is also on his way back to the compound, setting him and Sun on a collision course.
The first issue with So Fades The Light is that the film’s antagonists aren’t particularly compelling or intimidating. They are stock, criminally insane, fundamentalist, cardboard cutouts instead of characters, with the Reverend himself being characterised with so little charisma (given his role in the movie) to an extent that is actually laughable.
The second issue is with the film’s pacing. Given that So Fades The Light clocks in at about eighty-five minutes, Cousineau and co-director Chris Rosik act as if they have forty-five minutes to an hour longer than they actually do, to tell the story. Once the final confrontation takes place, the movie ends so abruptly that you don’t get a real sense of the toll that it has taken on Sun.
These pacing issues also bleed into the characterisation. While the protagonist Sun is given some decent depth, the Reverend, on the other hand, is incredibly one-note and dull, with the movie needing an extra forty minutes or so to flesh him out.
For a first time screen actor Lotz’s performance as Sun, is competent but let down by poor scripting. Lotz does a solid job in communicating the characters PTSD through small, understated gestures in keeping with the character’s backstory. By contrast D. Duke Solomon’s performance as the Reverend is hampered by the poor dialogue and by a complete lack of an interesting script.
Visually, to Cousineau and Rosik’s credit, So Fades The Light is pretty to look at; furthermore, the rural exterior shots and near-washed filters create a strong sense of melancholy, which, alongside a better script, would have been a potent combination. The flashback scenes to Sun’s childhood are well edited, with the quick cut as soon as the SWAT team turn up in particular being a real mark of technical skill, really bringing out the chaotic nature of the scene to the viewer.
Overall So Fades The Light is a dull and forgettable watch, punctuated by brief periods of attractive cinematography. The film lacks pace or an atmosphere of dead and the supporting cast, given little to work with, are about as memorable as Slough city centre. To sum up, if I’m thinking I’d rather be watching the finer points of John Matuszak’s filmography then something has truly gone wrong along the way.
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