Film Review: Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake)

5 Stars

By Joseph Beyer | Sept. 13, 2025

It’s hard to believe that the new enticing and lyrical indie film Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake) is a debut that comes from a writer/director who was just 26 years old when she made it.

And even harder to believe is this small passion project, shot entirely here in the Interlochen area, was plucked from over 1,500 American feature submissions to premiere at the famed Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. But what isn’t hard is seeing why, as this sometimes-drama and sometimes-comedy is filled with elegant talents you can feel and a depth that lingers after the credits roll.

From the patient storytelling to the subtle performances (many of them newcomers), to the production design and score, Sunfish is a cohesive vision of a time and place and how the course of just one summer can seem like a lifetime.

If the truism to “write what you know” still stands, it could be why Sierra Falconer found such fertile ground for her screenplay. A graduate of Traverse City West High School, she grew up spending summers with her grandparents on the film’s namesake waters, where she set the movie’s background to explore the themes of wanderlust, nostalgia, and home.

Falconer and her creative team move the audience through four distinct storylines in an intergenerational cinematic quilt as she pulls you into the lives of characters from young to old, confident to apprehensive, and the success and failure of being human.

Most notably for Northern Express audiences (who get a chance to experience the film on the big screen for one night only Thursday, Sept. 25, at 7pm at the State Theatre in downtown Traverse City), the plotlines include a teenage girl experiencing the right of passage of learning to sail on an inland lake, a struggling music student studying at Interlochen, a fishing tale of mythic proportions called “Two-Hearted,” and a bittersweet story of sisterhood set against a lakeside bed and breakfast.

Standing alone but threaded, these chapters act as vignettes that flow from one to another like a gentle lapping wave, much to the director’s credit, as she achieves this all in just 1 hour and 27 minutes.

Falconer conceived the narratives while finishing her graduate degree at UCLA, and she is now married to producer Grant Ellison, himself a Traverse City native. They knew filming in Michigan was a must, and their deep connections would make it possible to pull off a sweeping film on a modest budget.

Working with one foot in California where they lived and another here in Interlochen where they would be filming, the duo recruited locals Nick and Chris Loud to help co-produce and prep for the remarkably maverick 18-day shoot.

Cast by Jaime Gallagher, Sunfish combines veteran performers with relative newcomers in an ensemble including Maren Heary, Jim Kaplan, Emily Hall, Tenley Kellogg, and Karsen Liotta (daughter of the late acting legend Ray Liotta). All of them blend harmoniously in Falconer’s world, communicating volumes in a screenplay light on words but heavy in recognizable humanity.

Composer Brian Steckler’s classically inspired and light-touched score, along with cinematographer Marcus Patterson’s keen observational eye, are in perfect rhythmic sync with the story as things play out in both inevitable and surprising ways.

Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake) brings a familiar world to life, honoring a mood we can all recognize exists only from Memorial to Labor Days, and ushers in a refreshing and sophisticated new storytelling voice.

Playing one night only at The State Theatre, Sunfish & Other Stories on Green Lake is not rated. The film is currently touring theaters across the U.S. and will be followed by VOD. For updates, follow @sunfishthefilm on Instagram.