Sebastián (Sebastián Silva) is stuck in a creative rut in between projects and feeling hopeless, he makes jokes with his friend and landlord Mateo (Mateo Riestra) about taking dog poison. He is urged to go to a nearby gay, nude beach to relax, but he ends up rescuing a drowning swimmer caught in the rip current, and in doing so almost drowns himself. The swimmer is Jordan (Jordan Firstman), an Instagram influencer, and as the two begin to talk they flirt with the idea of mounting a project together. When the time comes for Sebastián and Jordan to begin working, Sebastián is nowhere to be found and Jordan begins to think he is being ghosted until the details of his disappearance are not adding up and he begins to worry that Sebastián may have made good on his jokes to kill himself. 

Sebastián Silva writes, directs, and stars in the darkly comedic autofiction Rotting in the Sun with assistance on the page from Pedro Peirano. The 109-minute film premiered at Sundance before it was made more widely available by Mubi. With no shame in showing off full frontal male nudity, the film’s reputation preceded it – bolstered by an incredible one sheet – but what the marketing keeps from audiences is the most fun part of the film; it is not just an edgy orgy, but it is actually a farcical murder mystery. As a note of clarity before diving in, references to Sebastián and Jordan will point to their characters on screen while Silva and Firstman will be used in regard to their work on the production.  

Regrettably, one cannot talk about Rotting in the Sun without addressing its very abrasive opening act. Silva works with such pestering self-importance in his handling of nudity and sex, clearly trying to get people talking so he can swoop in and quip that the only reason it is being talked about at all is because of society’s double standard in how it views female nudity with comfort but not male nudity on screen. His “gotcha” thesis is so bluntly hammered into the audience’s skulls that any of the sledgehammers wielded by Mateo’s construction crew are more nuanced than Silva’s pen. The whole conceit serves no purpose in the greater arc of the narrative, so it is a punishing first act to get through, but thankfully Silva refocuses his attention near the 30-minute mark once Sebastián goes missing. 

Vero (Catalina Saavedra), Sebastián’s housekeeper, is always present at the messy studio apartment. The two are bringing down a sofa for Jordan to sleep on while he and Sebastián are working on the new show, but Sebastián is distracted by a phone call and accidentally slips and falls over the balcony and to his death. It is a shocking reset button that Silva works into the narrative, but it also heralds in a far more interesting story than what was being set up back on the beach. The dark comedy which the film becomes, to be generous, is like a distant cousin of Pedro Almodóvar’s work, specifically Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), but it is still like the strange cousin that does not always get invited to holiday dinners because Silva is not working with the same precision as Almodóvar. Saavedra is a revelation in the film as she franticly works through what to do as the witness and possible involved party in this homicidal accident. As an audience, we are treated to a wildly tense mystery knowing full well what happened to Sebastián, but also the loose threads that Vero was unaware of. It is great fun and she has great comedic timing as she lurks in the background of the scenes toiling away at the chores while eavesdropping on what Mateo, Jordan, and the others know. As the tangle of lies begins to tighten itself around Vero, she slips tidbits of information to the various parties, turning them against each other and further implicating everyone in a crime that they were otherwise innocent of. 

Unfortunately, not all of the performances hit the same high as Saavedra. The influencer role was originally developed for Michael Cera who wisely turned it down, but in doing so gave way to Firstman who is a black hole that drags everyone and everything into his parade of narcissistic vapidity. Now, to be fair, it is a very confusing role on the page and there is no conceivable way that he is not aware that his character – both in the film and his persona in real life – is the punch line of the joke. The performance is so single note, though, that the puzzle is how much of this is truly intentional? Is this a stunningly nuanced performance in which Firstman is knocking it out of the park or is he truly not aware that he is being made fun of? Though he is not credited for more than appearing in the film, fulfilling such an important role, it is unlikely that he is wholly ignorant of the satirical look at influencer culture that Rotting in the Sun is projecting but is impossible to tell because his performance is so one note. 

Sebastián is wracked with a sort of imposter syndrome, unable to gain traction on his next project and depressed given the state of the film industry and how seemingly no one can name what the latest Martin Scorsese film was. The real folly here is that he is placing his own body of work in the same class as Scorsese’s, but there is still a nugget of truth that can be excavated and polished from this otherwise poor argument. What place does long-form filmed entertainment have in our society today given the prevalence of filmmaking tools at the disposal of anyone with a cell phone? There is a sense of dread over film circles, often cast by directors such as Scorsese, that filmmaking is no longer an art given the massive corporatization of the industry that has resulted in the meteoric rise of his favorite punching bag, Marvel Studios. Rotting in the Sun posits that the industry needs to lean in and accept influencers as having a valid voice in the industry, not just for having their pulse on the next big thing for culture – though often that stems from their invitations to the ethically questionable, studio-backed influencer screenings – but that they should be given the reigns to the medium because they, the influencers, are what audiences are looking for. By that logic, Sebastián himself then is nailing his own coffin as he scrolls endlessly through TikTok and that final blow is delivered when all of his original ideas in an HBO pitch meeting are shot down until he floats the collaboration with Jordan to the execs. The film then frames Jordan as a benevolent hero, setting out to be the savior not just of Sebastián, but the medium itself, and it all just rings so hollow. Through his eccentric antics, Jordan is allowed to run rampant across the runtime, but his motivations – even when crying to his followers in what is supposed to be an emotional turning point – are all self-centered and it is frankly surprising that we do not see Jordan pining more openly about his followers or view count and just how important he is in the wider sense. The results of an exit survey question of who even knew who Jordan Firstman was in the first place would be fascinating.   

Rotting in the Sun is such a frustrating exercise because of how enjoyable it is when it follows Vero, yet how insufferable it is when Jordan, and to a lesser extent Sebastián, are on screen. There is an air of self-righteousness about its opening, and since Silva is so quick to compare himself to Scorsese, he probably likens this first act to something in the same sphere as Pier Paolo Pasolini; the Italian provocateur, however, used nudity to prove a point be it against theocracy or fascism. To be gracious, Silva is possibly using the nudity as a metaphor for the vulnerability of the artist, but because a central part of his thesis substitutes the art of film for TikTok content, flaunting the nudity defeats this entire argument because there is no true artistic vulnerability in influencer culture, rather it is just curling up with whatever sponsor still thinks the youngest generation of consumers actually respond positively to corporate marketing tactics. Silva includes so much nudity and sex just to get people talking about his film because he does not trust the merits of his work on its own terms. It is a valid concern because the film also highlights the absolute worst aspects of scrappy, guerilla-esque filmmaking and it looks like it was shot on an iPhone in that it is shaky, washed out, poorly framed, and downright ugly to look at. Most likely, this was an aesthetic choice, but it is still a punishing experience for the senses and while Saavedra is a salve doing some great work, Rotting in the Sun is a misguided effort and lets Firstman hog way too much of the ring light.