When I set Joe Swanberg's first directed feature-length film in nine years, The Sun Never Sets, as part of my final triple feature at MIFF on the festival's final Friday night, I immediately imagined a blog post that used that film's title to farewell the festival for 2026.
Of course, I ruined all that by squeezing in one more MIFF movie on Sunday night, the result of having to cancel and reschedule a screening on Tuesday.
But I decided I could still use a variation on the title for the post that also features the American crime comedy Chili Finger and the French horror film Species, the latter of which fulfilled my semi-regular MIFF tradition of seeing a midnight movie. (Actual start time: 11:30 p.m.)
Little did I know that I would also have a celebrity sighting in terms of Swanberg himself.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I kicked off the daunting three-movie slate with a charcuterie board and beer at D.O.C., the trattoria in Carlton that I like to hit up whenever I can. I'd gotten in so many of my favorite CBD dinners during MIFF that I didn't actually know what I planned to do on Friday night, until I realized the 6:30 showing of Chili Finger was at Cinema Nova, also in Carlton, and not typically a MIFF venue. In fact, my records tell me that this is my first time seeing a MIFF movie at Nova, but I've seen maybe a hundred other movies there as this used to be one of my go-to theaters when I lived closer to the city.
Chili Finger is a crime comedy in the vein of a Coen brothers movie, though I might be more inclined to say that because John Goodman is a cast member. It's from a pair of directors who are new to me, Edd Benda and Stephen Helstad -- no surprise, as Benda's only previous feature was in 2015.
It starts with the standard disclaimer about movies based partially on true stories. "Some of these things actually happened. The rest did not." The second line, which came up separately, got a laugh from us, because the statement is implied.
The plot surrounds a woman (Judy Greer) finding a finger in her chili at a popular fast food chain, and the wave of consequences that result from that. In addition to Greer and Goodman, we've also got Sean Astin as Greer's husband and Bryan Cranston as Goodman's right-hand man. The cast was what drew me to it, even though this is the sort of movie that isn't a unique MIFF get. It sounded fun, and it was. Solid thumbs up.
After a walk from Carlton down to Flinders Street, which probably takes about 30 minutes, I had a quick drink at the festival hub in Federation Square. It's something I always like to do, and thought I might miss it this year. The festival hub was a little more subdued than usual, and I almost regretted my choice of a glass of syrah, because even though I'd opted for the smaller of the two size options, it was a heavy pour. In fact, I had to drink it rather quickly to cross the street to the Forum, the site of the old festival hub, and one of the classic MIFF venues. It is most often used for concerts, but there's an upstairs option for films, and that's where I saw The Sun Never Sets.
But not without my passing a red carpet where Swanberg was being interviewed.
Any time you see someone being interviewed on a red carpet with all the bright lights and cameras, there's a tendency to view them as larger than life. But I didn't instantly recognize who I was looking at. And because I try not to be starstruck, whenever I can help it, I continued on toward my seats.
But then I thought: "That's not just some producer. That's Joe Swanberg."
And so I hung back and half-listened to the questions being asked of him for another minute or so. I was too far away to really hear what either party was saying, and I didn't want to geek out too much so I didn't linger too long. I did, however, get to hear some younger woman address him, which I thought was funny -- she didn't know who he was and asked his name. "I'm Joe," he said. He agreed to take a picture with her, which I thought was especially funny because she didn't even know who she was getting a picture with. As far as I can tell, she didn't know Joe Swanberg from a hole in the ground.
Someone like me should have asked him a question. Or maybe I'm overstating my own credentials. I thought I'd seen more than just three of his films, but I'm a pretty big fan of two of them, Happy Christmas and Digging for Fire. The only film of his I've seen that I don't really like is Drinking Buddies. I have to go back and watch the films he made when he was sort of founding the mumblecore movement alongside people like the Duplass brothers, Lynn Shelton and Andrew Bujalski. Oddly, this is my fourth time tagging him on the blog, which is funny for a guy where I've only seen four of his movies, and the fourth only just now.
Anyway, Swanberg introduced the film as well with a very brief set of charming and humble remarks. I was sorry that I'd miss the Q&A in order to get to my third film of the night, but it would be pretty tight so there was no way I could stay.
And the film was my new favorite of the festival. I was just in the grip of Swanberg's easy ways for the entire running time. The film features Dakota Fanning, giving her best work since she was a child, and Jake Johnson, who has really grown on me over the years, as a couple in Alaska who love each other but are at different stages of their lives. Johnson's Jack is already divorced with two kids, and doesn't want to get married again or start another family, while Fanning's Wendy does want those things but wants to kick the can down the road on acknowledging them. (And yes, I did just realize there might be some kind of weird Peter Pan thing going on with those names.) Jack forces Wendy to take a few months to reconsider and find if there is a more perfect match for her out there, otherwise her spot on his couch is still open. Of course, Jack doesn't expect her to pick back up with an ex-boyfriend -- or for him to so jealous that he realizes he's made a grave mistake.
There are more delightful complications in Swanberg's script, but what I really want to impart to you is that this is a throwback to a not-too-distant sort of cinema of the past. It's not mumblecore, exactly, but it's a comedic drama that is essentially focused only on people's relationships and doesn't really need to have a high-concept hook. It's just a shrewd consideration about how people act when threatened with the loss of something they hold dear, even if they were trying to do the right thing, and the hold the past has on us. Yet it's not ponderous, and I laughed a lot more than I would have ever guessed. It's bright and humanistic and the Alaskan setting, while not strictly essential to the story being told, gives it a special vibe all its own.
The Q&A really did seem inviting, but I literally had six minutes until the scheduled start of my final movie of the night and a street still to cross to get there.
Species, directed by Marion Le Coroller, continues in a recent line of films made by French women in which body horror is a key theme, including the films of Julia Ducorneau and Coralie Fargeat. In fact, it has some very literal overlap with Ducorneau's Raw, as it also features medical students as its main characters.
Because I am now almost a full two days overdue on posting this post, I'll devote only a small number of words to this film that risks seeming dismissive. Actually I liked this film fine, probably better than that, but maybe I've just seen one too many movies recently involving people with flesh-eating viruses who indulge in zombie rage. And I don't mean to be reductive when this is how I characterize this movie, and it actually doesn't need to be more than that, but the script is a little thin on character development or other narrative deal. But there's some good gory squishiness and I'd say it fits the bill for a midnight movie, even if it's made with considerably more filmmaking skill that some other films that would get categorized that way.
I did think it was nice to see Karin Viard in the cast. If you don't know who that is, she was one of the apartment dwellers in Jeunet et Caro's Delicatessen.
Since the French title of the film is Sanguine, they could have translated it as Blood instead of Species, but maybe that doesn't sell as well. Just don't expect to see Natasha Henstridge.
Getting out around 1:30, Uber was the only way home, so that's what I did.
I'll wrap my 2026 MIFF coverage after a final film on Sunday night.
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