‘Rotting in the Sun’: Sebastián Silva’s Indescribable Meta Satire [Review]

Here’s an underrated gem that screened at this past January’s Sundance Film Festival and is being released this coming Friday. As we are in the thick of fall festival season, not enough people are going to be talking about it, but it’s well worth seeking out.

Set in a Mexican beach town, “Rotting in the Sun” is Sebastián Silva’s darkly existential meta-comedy about a filmmaker (also played by Silva) who has run out of options in life. He’s depressed, suicidal, lost and artistically empty.

Enter social media celebrity Jordan Firstman, who meets Silva at a wild beach party and plans to visit him later in the week to brainstorm ideas for an HBO show. Will this solve Silva’s writers block?

The problem is that when Firstman finally tries to meet up with Silva, the filmmaker seems to have gone missing. He suspects that the cleaning lady in Sebastian's building may be involved in his disappearance. Firstman decides to play detective.

That’s all you need to know. Don’t let anyone ruin this sharp satire on millennial life. “Rotting in the Sun,” is filled with toxically comedic narcissism, and has been aptly described as being part of the “filthy filmmaking spirit of John Waters.” It’s as good, if not better than that.

Shot in deftly realized handheld, this low-budget film is a trippy farce, a skewering of the industry, a romance, a thriller, stoner comedy — you will have no idea where it’s going next. It’s the definition of an unhinged black comedy.

Silva, the 44-year-old director of “Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus” and “Old Cats,” has made the best movie of his career. A personal and deeply self-deprecating treatise on ego, art and death. Points of view keeps shifting throughout, but Silva’s effortless mix of narrative beats and genres truly works as an organic whole.

The film is set to open, via MUBI, in theaters on September 8 before streaming on the platform September 15. A trailer was also released. [B+]