For a movie with such a cheery, upbeat title, Let the Sunshine In is determinedly melancholic. Check the director’s name and that makes sense: Claire Denis doesn’t really make straightforwardly upbeat movies, from Trouble Every Day to White Material, so naturally she’d make a romantic comedy dripping in sadness. But it’s a good kind of sadness founded on a real sense of tenderness, so there’s that. Denis is also a ridiculously talented filmmaker, so in presenting a movie told through a genre with fairly specific expectations (being the romantic comedy), she finds layers of complexity and winds up talking about the very real vagaries of love, sex, and companionship. It’s a bittersweet movie, and far and away a favorite of mine in my slate of recent viewing, so basically you should be rushing over to Paste Magazine to feast your eyes on my very positive review.
A Constant Visual Feast 