One of the refreshing aspects of a John Sayles film is a lack of an ideological axe to grind. Now, this isn’t to say that his work is not fiercely political—it is, and in the purest sense of the term, as so many of his stories revolve around a community of people who must find their way out of a common problem, usually through conversation, debate, and/or the sort of difficult interpersonal engagement(s) that could tip into either jovialness or violence. A variety of perspectives and backgrounds show up in a Sayles film, and all are given at least a few shades of complexity, so one cannot say that Sayles hews to stereotypes in order to unfairly lambast one side of the aisle—he simply lets his characters, in all their complicatedness, interact, and drive themselves toward story’s end. Of course, Sayles’s Leftist bona fides ought to be old news for anyone at least remotely aware of his oeuvre and legacy, but the point is that Sayles is a storyteller first, and advocate second; although he would also be the first to say that his artistry and his politics are deeply intertwined.

His 2002 film Sunshine State is an excellent example of this, as it is full of opportunities for Sayles to lapse into screed or sloganeering—Southernness, the legacy of racism, the encroachment of capitalistic interests into a small community, etc.—but he wisely focuses on his characters first, on their wants and disappointments, so that those broader issues reach out to the viewer with personalized force. That very little seems cleanly resolved by film’s end, in what might roughly be described as “victory” for one group, is a testament to the artist’s penchant for clear-eyed realism. […]