Sunny Dancer (dir. George Jaques)

by Jack Martin | Aug 15, 2026

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 106 mins

UK Distributor: True Brit Entertainment

UK Release Date: 14 August 2026

WHO’S IN SUNNY DANCER?

Bella Ramsey, Daniel Quinn-Toye, Ruby Stokes, Earl Cave, Jasmine Elcock, Conrad Khan, Jessica Gunning, James Norton, Neil Patrick Harris, Shalom Brune-Franklin, Louis Gaunt, Josie Walker, James Blunt

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

George Jaques (director, writer, producer), Ken Petrie (producer), Zachary Dawes and Este Haim (composers), Oliver Loncraine (cinematographer), Caitlin Spiller (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A teenage cancer survivor (Ramsey) attends a life-changing summer camp…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON SUNNY DANCER?

Cancer sucks, living with cancer sucks worse, but nothing sucks more than living with cancer as a child or adolescent. There’s something particularly cruel about seeing a young person with their whole life right in front of them be denied that path by the firm grip of cancer, because even if they miraculously make it through thanks to the various treatments available to them, the amount of growing-up they’ll undoubtedly have to do during this whole ordeal would prevent them from fully enjoying what remains of their childhood.

Which is why writer-director George Jaques’ Sunny Dancer is quite remarkable. It takes a deeply serious topic such as cancer, particularly the kind found in young people, and effectively gives back that joy and enthusiasm with a story that emphasises the youthful resilience over the endless misery. It doesn’t completely avoid the difficult topic, especially in how emotionally devastating the consequences of cancer can be, but it offers real charm and a hefty dollop of optimism to counteract the more negative aspects, including when it gets a bit too syrupy for its own good.

The film primarily follows Ivy (Bella Ramsey), a teenager who’s just gone through life-saving cancer treatment but has shut herself off from the world due to the trauma she experienced during it all. At the insistence of her loving parents Bob (James Norton) and Karen (Jessica Gunning), Ivy reluctantly heads to a specialist summer camp for fellow cancer survivors, where she quickly clashes with the camp’s president Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris) and refuses to participate in the various activities. Of course, things quickly turn around for Ivy when she befriends a ragtag group of misfits who would rather drink, get laid and generally bum around than follow the camp’s rules, or even think about their own illnesses in any serious way. Among the less thinly-sketched members of Ivy’s new friend group are her roommate Ella (Ruby Stokes) who is keen to lose her virginity with the handsome camp counsellor Tristan (Louis Gaunt), grungy rebel Ralph (Earl Cave) who’s a bit of a wild card, and Jake (Daniel Quinn-Toye) who Ivy soon finds herself attracted to.

It’s essentially a hang-out movie, one that foregoes a concrete plot and focuses almost entirely on this group of characters going on various episodic misadventures together during this summer camp experience, while every now and then dealing with the emotional and mental fallout of their personal experiences with overcoming such a deadly disease. Like classic hang-out filmmakers like Richard Linklater and Kevin Smith, Jaques works in an invigorative and optimistic attitude where this group of youths actively embrace their zest for life through getting drunk, transforming their cabins into rave halls, sleeping around and even getting into fist-fights at nearby fun-fairs, all without overt judgement from anyone (except, of course, the well-meaning but comparatively humourless staff at this camp). The filmmaker maintains this charming energy throughout much of Sunny Dancer, as do the young actors who all share a vibrant chemistry that elevates the on-screen power of witnessing such rebellious yet endearing camaraderie, which rubs off onto the viewer to where you feel as though you’re a welcome member of the gang as well.

Of course, the topic of cancer isn’t entirely brushed aside, for you’ll still have quite a few poignant scenes where characters reminisce about the trauma they’ve endured or the possibility of their illness not completely going away. Some of these can come directly after a much more jovial sequence, but Jaques works in enough space for the tonal shift to feel a lot more natural and not too jarring, all without ignoring the seriousness that can come with such a thing. Again, the actors do such a great job at conveying the anxiety of living through their illnesses, or simply the heartbreak of being a parent or family member who’s lost a loved one to one of the many types of cancer out there, that it’s easy to empathise with them as much as you enjoy hanging out with them, ensuring that the overall tone doesn’t fluctuate too rapidly.

However, it can open itself up to a few conventional narrative choices that don’t entirely fit a more grounded and character-centric movie such as this. To elaborate on a certain later development would obviously be a spoiler, but it’s the kind of plot device that you’ve seen inserted into a lot of cheesy dramas as a relatively cheap bit of emotional manipulation, and its presence here feels especially unnecessary as the film was already doing a good job of making the viewer feel for these characters and the liberating journey they were on together. It’s enough to unfortunately take you out of what it otherwise a powerful climax, one that ironically fares much better when it’s just allowing these characters to be who they are instead of the rather hackneyed and contrived version that some of them may or may not become.

That aside, Sunny Dancer works pretty well as an endearing hang-out movie where cancer is far from the first thing on your or the characters’ minds, which in turn allows their undeniable spirit to shine in ways that make it so much fun to just spend time with them. But even whenever it addresses the cancerous elephant in the room, the film retains its much-needed optimism as much as it can for the overall experience to feel warm and wholesome without side-stepping the seriousness lurking underneath it all.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Sunny Dancer is a charmingly upbeat hang-out movie which is driven by the infectious charm of its young cast and filmmaker George Jaques’ heartfelt direction, while not entirely ignoring the seriousness surrounding the heavy topic of cancer, which the film sometimes handles in too heavy-handed a manner.