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By scotthgilliland on March 28, 2026 |
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Lunar Sway is visually exceptional, with great performances from lead Noah Parker and Liza Weil. Occasionally too dreamlike for its own good, Nick Butler’s film is still an engaging watch.
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Cliff (Noah Parker) is a fluorescent sign maker, struggling with his love life in a desert town, when he unexpectedly connects with his estranged birth mother. After learning of his mom’s string of secrets, Cliff is led on a wild misadventure while also spending time with his love interest, Stew, a mysterious dentist.
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At times, a drifting exploration of Cliff’s life works wonders for the audience at the beginning of the film. We get to experience this surreal little world and the general mindset of our protagonist early on, so we can settle in more quickly. We are given time to adjust and, importantly, engage with this unassumingly odd world. It, along with the cinematography by Dimitry Lopatin, is captivating. Full of wide shots that show how isolated and lonely Cliff is at this point in his life, with subtle changes to a more intimate close-up lens when Cliff does have important and well-meaning interactions with characters.
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Once you notice this technique and see how the camera treats Cliffs’ relationships with other characters, it allows you to be that bit more engaged with where Butler is taking his film. The originality of the plan, despite the clear influences in Lunar Sway, combined with Butler’s choices, keeps us firmly on our toes. If you can guess what is to happen in that Karaoke bar or how Cliff and Marg’s relationship evolves, then you have a sharper eye than I.
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Noah Parker is top-notch as Cliff, giving us an understated performance that feels incredibly believable in a film rife with oddities. He pulls you in as he brilliantly takes each interaction and scenario he encounters. The character of Cliff is not an easy one to pull off and is full of nuances that Parker can gainfully pull off.
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Equally, Liza Well is great here as the mysterious Marg. Playing it up delightfully as she takes Cliff on her adventures. Her performance allows Parker to be the calming sounding board for her, and even allows Grace Glowicki’s madcap performance to shine. With such strong casting in place, the one area we knew not to worry about in Lunar Sway was the performances.
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The pacing and some choices throughout Lunar Sway undermine the film’s potential to truly stick with you. The dreamlike nature of the opening half works wonders, allowing us to see Mooncrest and its inhabitants as the wonderful oddballs they are. But that success and engagement can only last so long once we leave the safety of the town, as Cliff and Marg begin their journey together. The story becomes a bit more linear while still trying to maintain that odd, unpredictable feeling, and it doesn’t quite work as well.
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Add to this some plot decisions, and you really feel like something is missing, as if Lunar Sway was on the cusp of being one of those films you heavily recommend for being surreal just enough yet still with an unmissable story. Instead, it becomes a film that you will still talk about, just not as much as it should. The dramatic shift in tone in the second half of the film creates an issue, as we see a variety of ways the film could wrap up. Yet it doesn’t, continuing on more than it needs to.
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That said, however, Lunar Sway is full of heart and humour in this coming-of-age film where the relatability of finding love (in all its forms) in the wrong places takes centre stage.
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I am but a small website in this big, wide world. As much as I would love to make this website a big and wonderful entity. That would bring in more costs. So, for now, all I hope is to make Upcoming On Screen self-sufficient. Well, enough to make any website fees less of a worry for me in the future. You can support the website below…
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You can support us in a variety of ways (other than that wonderful word of mouth) and those lovely follows. If you are so inclined to help us out then you can support us via Patreon, find our link here!. We don’t want to ask you much, so for now, we have limited our tiers to £1.50 and £3.50. These will, of course, grow the more we plan to do here at Upcoming On Screen.
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Thanks for reading; every view helps us out more than you would think (we have fragile egos). Until next time.
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