Rating: NR | Runtime: 87 minutes
Release Date: September 12th, 2025 (USA)
Studio: The Future of Film is Female / Tribeca Films
Director(s): Sierra Falconer
Writer(s): Sierra Falconer

Those knots will kill you.

What does a fourteen-year-old getting stuck with her grandparents on zero notice, a violin savant buckling under the impossible pressure of his domineering mother, a terminally ill fisherman and an exiled-from-the-world bartender seeking any thrill to change her life, and a pair of sisters reconciling with the one’s impending departure have in common? They’ve all serendipitously found themselves spending a portion of their summer on the water of Michigan’s Green Lake Township.

Writer/director Sierra Falconer’s Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake) unfolds as a quartet of vignettes tenuously connected to present a love letter to the wonders and possibilities of life. It’s joy and love born from tragedy and chaos. It’s finding the freedom of identity through what sometimes feels like the oppressive nature of circumstances outside your control. Because each one of these characters could simply accept the despair clawing its way into their thoughts. Or they can embrace the unbridled potential of the unknown.

Lu (Maren Heary) is first up as she’s unceremoniously dropped off at her grandparents’ (Marceline Hugot’s Nan and Adam LeFevre’s Pop) house by her just-married-with-no-warning mother. The teen sees it as a punishment. Abandonment. She doesn’t want to even consider making the best of a terrible situation because all she really wants is to go back home with Mom. But, with the help of a baby loon, she discovers sailing and birding and the comfort of quiet living. She’s been tossed from the nest, but now she’s beginning to soar.

We meet Jun (Jim Kaplan) next as his mother demands he speaks a wish aloud as though reification is an infallible science. We therefore see firsthand that his obvious anxiety about auditioning for first chair violin at this expensive and exclusive music camp is mostly his mom’s fault. Her undue pressure has him practicing so hard that he never interacts with the other musicians. And every missed note sends the end of his bow into the top of his foot until it draws blood. Will earning the role even be worth it? Only if it’s for him and not her.

Part Three is both the most fun and most unrealistic of the collection. So, while you may find the excitement (and its convenient motivations) a bit jarring compared to its more down-to-earth companions, Annie (Karsen Liotta) and Finn (Dominic Bogart) imbue this fated adventure with too much energy to not get swept up in its fantastical stakes. Will the cantankerous Chip (Wayne Duvall) ruin their hunt for a giant fish of legend? Will Annie see it with her own eyes to corroborate Finn’s tall tales? Will the latter achieve his legacy?

And, just as Lu’s arrival brings us into Green Lake, it’s Robin’s (Emily Hall) departure that sends us off with a wave to sister Blue Jay (Tenley Kellogg). The two run a bed and breakfast with their father and the hope is that a new Hollywood family might distract Blue from the sorrow of watching big sis leave for culinary school. In the meantime, however, they’re going to make the most out of the trampoline and kitchen while silently mocking their eclectic tenants. They’ll get on each other’s nerves, laugh until it hurts, and weep from longing.

Each little story holds a sweet yet authentic look at the breadth of emotions the human condition bestows upon us all. The scenery is gorgeous, the players three-dimensional in their yearning, and the overall vibe a heartfelt shot of nostalgia for sleepy summers, new friends, and indelible experiences possessed with the power to alter the very fabric of your soul. Its locale is specific, but its themes—pleasures and stresses alike—are universal. We should all aspire to reclaim the sense of exhilaration that comes with not knowing what comes next.

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Maren Heary in SUNFISH (& OTHER STORIES ON GREEN LAKE); courtesy of Tribeca Films.