24.12.23
Easily 2023’s funniest film, but also one of its boldest and darkest, Rotting in the Sun is a deeply cynical and unflattering portrayal of privilege, sexuality and celebrity. It’s very impressively directed, co-written and main-role led, at least for the first half of the film by Chilean director Sebastián Silva, portraying a contemptible, animal-beating and misanthropic piece of shit Sebastián.
He’s also horrible to his housekeeper Vero (played brilliantly by Catalina Saavedra), who bit-by-bit becomes the main agent of the narrative, not dissimilar to Dolly De Leon’s commanding role as Abigail in the film Triangle of Sadness from 2022. In Rotting in the Sun, by examining the importance of Vero’s involvement in what happens, we can compare the downtroddenness of her life to the fake, vacuous men around her. It’s also an intelligent take on the cult of online influencers, the admonishness of genuine mental health problems and hurdles within the creative process.
An outstanding event mid-film flips the whole narrative, and it’s here that the film wriggles out of its satirical skin as it becomes more akin to Knives Out or even the TV series The White Lotus; a domestic ‘whodunnit’ where we know what happened but most of the main cast don’t. It’s at this halfway point we also see the film exhibit a frantic, sometimes nauseating intensity, similar to Uncut Gems, which I was not expecting but was totally gripped by.
After watching the film, when you know what the title refers to, it just makes the film seem so sharp and reminds us that picking the name of the film should indeed be a wise, essential part of film as a single piece of media. It’s one of the biggest surprises of the year and despite the stress that I felt watching it, it’s a film I am keen to revisit down the line. It’s a mordant satire, which draws ugly parallels between social media, depression and drug addiction. In a world where rotten behaviour and dialogue can be seen wherever you look, what else can we do except sit back, laugh and pick it apart in extreme discomfort?