‘Sukkwan Island’ Review: A Rugged and Intimate Survival Story Upended by a Fatal Final Twist

Movies about irresponsible parenting in the great outdoors have become something of an arthouse subgenre over the past decade. Matt Ross’ Captain Fantastic, Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace, India Donaldson’s Good One and Philippe Lesage’s Who by Fire all feature children coming of age in the wilderness as their fathers mess up in one way or another. If there’s perhaps one takeaway from all of these films, it’s to be on guard the next time your dad asks you to go on a long hike or camping trip.

Unfortunately, such a warning was never issued to Roy (Woody Norman), the 13-year-old protagonist of French writer-director Vladimir de Fontenay’s latest feature, Sukkwan Island. Embarking with his father, Tom (Swann Arlaud), on an extended séjour to an isolated cabin somewhere in the Norwegian fjords, Roy soon finds himself facing various life or death scenarios while Tom gradually flies off the handle.

Adapted from David Vann’s 2010 novel, which won several awards in France, the film is a rugged two-hander about a son getting to know his estranged father while they attempt to survive through the long and relentless Nordic winter. As the two are confronted by snowstorms, hungry bears and other external threats, it becomes increasingly clear that the real threat is Tom, a troubled man broken by divorce and seeking to build a bond with a boy he doesn’t ever bother to understand.

Like De Fontenay’s debut feature Mobile Homes, which followed an impoverished family scraping by in upstate New York, Sukkwan Island has a powerful immersive quality that makes up for some of its dramatic shortcomings, especially dialogue that can feel either stilted or too on-the-nose.

Shot with stylized naturalism by Amine Berrada (Banel & Adama), the film plunges us into a breathtaking northern landscape that’s virtually untouched by man. Tom and Roy spend a lot of time trudging through heaping piles of snow or jumping into a lake that looks abominably cold. When they’re not doing other outdoor activities like cutting wood or hunting elk, they’re stuck together in an old cabin that could use some major repairs, including a new roof.

The two are doing this at the urging of Tom, a Frenchman who split with Roy’s mother (Tuppence Middleton) and hasn’t been in the picture for some time. He’s hoping the trip will become a rite of passage through which Roy learns both survival instincts and to appreciate the simple beauties of nature. At least for a few days or weeks, that seems to be the case. But then Roy begins to realize his father is selfish, unhinged and, to cite the above-listed movies, totally irresponsible — to the point that he puts them both in serious danger.

Working under what were clearly harsh conditions, De Fontenay achieves a real level of intimacy with his two performers, whose characters are constantly wavering between moments of affection and resentment. Arlaud (Anatomy of a Fall) portrays Tom as a lost soul with good intentions but no idea how to behave like a proper parent. And the excellent Norman (who starred alongside Joaquin Phoenix in C’mon C’mon) reveals how much Roy wants to love and respect his dad, all the while remaining uneasy around him.

Things inevitably come to a head as the winter grows darker and more hostile, forcing Roy and Tom to resort to extremes so they can survive — especially after their two-way radio is destroyed by the latter, who wants to cut them off entirely from civilization. By that point, it becomes difficult to believe that Tom could be so reckless as to risk their lives, making us wonder if he’s gone completely out of his mind. De Fontenay alludes to this earlier when Roy discovers his dad’s stash of anxiety meds, but it’s otherwise hard to imagine the man would take things so far just to prove that he has terrific survival skills.

Alas, the director tosses in a major, not-worth-spoiling twist at the very last minute to explain all the craziness we’ve been witnessing. The plot reversal does manage to justify how things got far so out of hand, though it also comes across as a major cop-out — so much so that several title cards are inserted at the end to make the finale go down more smoothly.

These kinds of twists, whether in the famous dream season of Dallas or nearly every movie made by M. Night Shyamalan, are, at their best, a chance for the viewer to rethink what they’ve been watching, to see the drama in a new light. In some ways De Fontenay achieves this, but in others he undermines his own film. That doesn’t necessarily take away from the better aspects of Sukkwan Island, especially the lived-in performances and you-are-there quality of the direction. But it makes for shaky ground to stand on, with the risk that everything Roy and Tom just went through ultimately loses its staying power.