Dakota Fanning Gives the Best Performance of Her Career

Joe Swanberg builds The Sun Never Sets around a messy love triangle filled with people who make frustrating, complicated and very human decisions. At its center is Dakota Fanning, delivering the kind of performance that deserves to be part of the awards conversation.

By MIGUEL MATEO | SEPTEMBER 3, 2026

Wendy is dating Jack, an older divorced father played by Jake Johnson, when he suggests time apart so she can figure out what she wants. Soon after, former boyfriend Chuck comes back into her life. From there, The Sun Never Sets builds a love triangle that could have easily felt familiar, but the people inside it are messy enough to keep the movie unpredictable.

This is the kind of romantic drama Materialists seemed poised to become.

The triangle at the center of the story works because every person involved feels fully formed. Nobody exists simply to represent one possible future for Wendy. Jack has his own insecurities and limits. Chuck carries history with her that cannot be ignored. Wendy is trying to make sense of what she wants while repeatedly making choices that complicate everything.

Dakota Fanning is remarkable, delivering what may be the best performance of her career.

What makes Wendy so compelling is how frustrating she can be. There are moments when her choices seem impossible to defend, yet Fanning never loses the humanity of the character. Wendy feels like the friend whose decisions can drive everyone around her crazy because her desire to be happy is so clear, even when she keeps getting in her own way.

Fanning plays all of that with tremendous control. Much of the performance lives in small reactions. Wendy thinks before she speaks, second-guesses herself, holds something back or realizes too late that she has hurt someone. Those details make her feel like a real person instead of a character designed around a romantic dilemma.

It is the kind of performance that deserves to be part of the awards conversation. Fanning has been working for most of her life, and there is something satisfying about seeing her deliver work this mature and precise at this stage of her career.

Jake Johnson is also fantastic. He may genuinely have never been funnier, and his humor gives the movie some of its best moments. More importantly, he makes Jack vulnerable without reducing him to the wounded boyfriend waiting for Wendy to choose him. Cory Michael Smith brings a different energy to Chuck, and the history between him and Wendy gives the triangle emotional weight.

The film lets all three of them be complicated. People make selfish decisions. They say the wrong thing. They want contradictory things at the same time. Nobody has the perfect answer.

That emotional messiness is what keeps the story engaging.

The Sun Never Sets understands how much of love is tied up in timing, fear, memory and the version of ourselves we are still trying to become. The relationships feel believable because everyone is allowed to be inconsistent, selfish, vulnerable and sincere, sometimes all at once.

At the center of that complexity is Fanning, whose performance gives Wendy a level of specificity that keeps the entire movie grounded. The Sun Never Sets is a strong romantic drama on its own, but her work elevates it into something far more memorable.

Rating: ★★★★ out of ★★★★★
In Select Theaters

Directed by Joe Swanberg | Written by Joe Swanberg | Starring Dakota Fanning, Jake Johnson, Cory Michael Smith, Debby Ryan, Anna Konkle, Lamorne Morris, Karley Sciortino