Every December, when the Winter Solstice arrives, it is an opportunity to bring warmth and light into the darkest time of the year, and that’s exactly what writer/director Josh Sternfeld has done with his feature film debut “Winter Solstice.” A poignant look at the impact a woman’s love and support has on a father struggling with his sons setting out to explore their independence. This Sundance Film Festival Screenwriter’s Lab pick is fueled with an intensity and surprising optimism that are sure to ignite a myriad of emotions in all who cherish the meaning of family.
Jim Winters (Anthony LaPaglia) is a widower raising two teenage sons in a modest New Jersey home where the unspoken presence of the boys’ mother -- killed in a car accident five years earlier -- lingers with a quiet intensity. Gabe (Aaron Stanford), the oldest son, wants nothing more than to get out of the New Jersey suburbs and start a new life in Florida, even if it means leaving behind his girlfriend Stacey (Michelle Monaghan), his younger brother Pete (Mark Webber) and his father, who has tried to be strong for his boys, but still clearly misses his wife.
Jim doesn’t have a clue that Gabe wants to leave town. He’s busy trying to run a small landscaping business and keep Pete on track to finish high school, something at which Pete’s teacher Mr. Bricker (Ron Livingston) is working hard as well. Usually content just to hang out with his buddies and shoot hoops, Pete is increasingly restless and at odds with nearly everyone around him. He’s certainly not about to open up about surviving the crash that took his mother, and his father and brother aren’t comfortable enough to let out their emotions about her very “present” absence either.
The emotional impasse is about to be bridged when Molly Ripken (Allison Janney) moves into the quiet little community to housesit for a friend. Looking for help with her unpacking, Molly borrows a dolly from Jim, and when she returns it, she invites him and his boys to dinner as a gesture of thanks. With this subtle act of boldness, Molly ignites a spark in Jim that he’d long since let die. It’s as though she empowers the man to let go of the emotional baggage that has long kept him from exploring intimacy and perhaps even life itself.
When the night of the dinner rolls around, the boys ditch their dad so he is forced to go alone. A blessing in disguise? Absolutely. It turns out that a meal alone with Molly helps crack open this man of steel and gets him to start shedding his “super dad” front. It hasn’t been easy being both parents and confiding in Molly unleashes Jim’s frustrations, gets him talking about his past, and starts preparing him for his present.
After dinner, Jim returns home to find his boys still out. He decides that if they want independence, he’s going to help them. In fact, if they want to stay out all night, they can sleep out all night too; and with that, he tosses their mattresses and bedding on the front lawn.
In the morning, the reality of Gabe’s decision to leave home and Pete’s growing rebelliousness still linger, but Jim’s got a new spring in his step. He can finally see the brighter times that lay ahead, and he knows in is heart that it is finally time to leave the darkness behind.
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