Sweet Sue movie review (2023) | Little White Lies

Sweet Sue review – a strange, dis­joint­ed film

21 Dec 2023 / Released: 22 Dec 2023

Three middle-aged women in somber attire, likely at a funeral. One woman wears a black hat, another a long dark coat, and the third a long black coat. They appear somber and reflective, walking together.
Three middle-aged women in somber attire, likely at a funeral. One woman wears a black hat, another a long dark coat, and the third a long black coat. They appear somber and reflective, walking together.
3

Anticipation.

Leo Leigh looks into the dark heart of the boomer dating circuit.

2

Enjoyment.

Rambling and unfocused, despite a couple of stand-out moments and soulful central turn.

2

In Retrospect.

Perhaps the film Leigh Jr needed to make in order to iron out some kinks in his process.

Leo Leigh’s like­able but wonky fea­ture debut offers a mean­der­ing trawl through the doomed love life of a mature par­ty shop owner.

The apple hasn’t fall­en far from the tree in Leo – son of Mike – Leigh’s fea­ture debut as direc­tor and writer, as the gen­tly ambling, seri­o­com­ic Sweet Sue plays like one of his pop’s ear­ly, fun­ny ones. Yet there’s some­thing that doesn’t quite scan with this sto­ry of a thrill-seek­ing mid­dle-aged woman who runs a dis­mal par­ty goods store and her mis­ad­ven­tures on the dat­ing scene. Mag­gie O’Neill plays Sue as prac­ti­cal­ly-mind­ed and with­out any airs or graces. She is on the prowl for per­son­al hap­pi­ness, and if you’re not with her on this mis­sion, you’re against her.

Fol­low­ing a con­tex­tu­al pro­logue which cap­tures her roman­tic and famil­ial frus­tra­tions, she’s whisked away by surly, stacked bik­er Ron (Tony Pitts), and what ini­tial­ly appears as an ide­al con­nec­tion between two lost souls ends up as some­thing of a night­mare as we meet divorcee Ron’s insane fam­i­ly of grotesques.

It all feels very slight, with Leigh appar­ent­ly unde­cid­ed if this is a film about the awk­ward rela­tion­ship tri­als of the cen­tral cou­ple, or a sur­vey of Eng­lish work­ing-class man­ners. Though Sue does not come away from this with a clean rap sheet, moral­ly speak­ing, some of the char­ac­ters she meets along the way (a sex­u­al­ly tor­ment­ed big­ot, a self-regard­ing YouTu­ber) aren’t extend­ed a sim­i­lar empa­thy. It’s a strange, dis­joint­ed film that lacks a clear struc­ture and a sat­is­fy­ing dénoue­ment, even if O’Neill excels at chan­nelling her pri­or years in the emo­tion­al dol­drums via her stern, seen-it-all-before manner.

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