BFI Flare 2026: Lunar Sway

Writer and Director: Nick Butler

In astrology a Lunar Sway represents a character’s inherent personality, perspective on life, and how they interact with the world, being either optimistic and active or sceptical and calculating. In Nick Butler’s movie Lunar Sway the actions and motivations of the characters are so erratic and opaque they may well be determined by astrological direction.

Cliff (Noah Parker) resides with his adoptive parents in a run-down desert town called Mooncrest. He has a lover and few apparent concerns other than the acne on his back. Cliff earns a living by, and gets some artistic satisfaction from, making neon signs. Cliff’s mundane life is shaken up when Marg (Liza Weil) arrives and he infers she is his estranged birth mother. However, their reunion is disrupted by Bailey (Grace Glowicki), a self-proclaimed bounty hunter, who claims Marg is not Cliff’s birth mother but actually a confidence trickster. Cliff makes a life-changing decision and joins Marg on the road becoming closer to her than he might ever have imagined.

Lunar Sway is a highly unconventional coming of age/rites of passage movie. There is a studied eccentricity about the film with dialogue that is occasionally remote and situations which are deliberately unusual. There is a loose theme of supernatural influence with tarot cards and energy healing or perhaps the intention is to suggest such activities are another example of people leaving themselves open to deception.

For reasons which are never explained Cliff is in therapy; the sole purpose of this plot thread seems to be to set up a sequence where Cliff realises his therapist is doodling pornographic sketches during their sessions. Cliff uses this knowledge to blackmail the therapist for spicy details of what other patients reveal during their sessions only to be told the lives of Mooncrest residents are boring rather than salacious.

Some of the plot threads are explained; although the clarification is rarely conventional. The strange presence of a portrait of Cliff in the local junk shop is eventually explained as being painted by his former lover who, it turns out, has facial blindness, and paints portraits as a means of remembering faces.

The fragmented film may be intended to reflect the arbitrary nature of life or Cliff’s compliant, easily-led personality. Mistaken for a sex worker Cliff simply allows himself to be exploited.

But the more crucial elements of the plot are left vague.  Bailey is more likely to be one of Marg’s victims than a bounty hunter. Even if that is the case, the character is underdeveloped to the extent it is hard to understand the zeal with which Bailey chases her prey or whether she wants revenge or restitution. Even if Marg is a con artist pretending to be Cliff’s birth mother seems like a disproportionate effort in order to deceive his adoptive parents who have only a modest income.

Two thirds into the film the tone shifts into a deadpan comedy caper movie with Cliff joining Marg on the road, donning a series of disguises and taking part in her deceitful escapades. Writer/ director Nick Butler squeezes a lot of humour into the sequence with Cliff and Marg behaving like a long-married couple and developing habits which get on each other’s nerves.

By far the biggest plot development is that the relationship between Cliff and Marg becomes sexual. Until this point Cliff’s sexual relations have been homosexual and the reason for his change of heart is not given. Whether the age difference between the characters or breaking the taboo of possible incest adds spice to the tryst is left unexamined.  Ultimately Cliff treats his adventures as an opportunity to develop a sense of curiosity and wonder about the wider world and the resulting changes to his lifestyle, while modest, give him a degree of satisfaction.

The fragmented storyline and limited detail on the characters prevents the audience from being completely drawn into Lunar Sway although it offers an oddly gratifying conclusion.

BFI Flare runs from 18-29 March.