Vague Visages’ The Burning Season review contain minor spoilers. Sean Garrity’s 2023 movie features Sara Canning, Jonas Chernick and Joe Pingue. Check out the VV home page for more film reviews, along with cast/character summaries, streaming guides and complete soundtrack song listings.

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The Ringer’s resident film buff Sean Fennessey has a rule that movies which open with a wedding are good and those that close with one are bad. It’s a fun notion that mostly holds up, although it’s a difficult rule to apply to Sean Garrity’s new film The Burning Season, because, in the cleverly crafted romantic drama, a wedding both opens and closes the film. 

The Burning Season’s opening sequence, titled “Chapter 7,” revolves around the wedding of a middle-aged man known as JB (Jonas Chernick). When the protagonist first appears, he is moments away from marrying a beautiful woman named Poppy (Tanisha Thammavongsa) in an elegant outdoor ceremony at a stunning lake resort which he also happens to own. JB truly looks like a man who is living his best life.  

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But then an unexpected guest named Alena (Sara Canning) shows up with her husband Tom (Joe Pingue) and something in the air immediately shifts. It’s unclear what accounts for the tension between her and JB, but it’s evident that they have a history together which their partners know nothing about. And while the implications of that seem sleazily predictable, there are hints that something much darker has gone down between them somewhere along the line. 

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After Alena’s arrival, JB quickly spirals out of control. He gets high and goes barreling off through the reception, with cinematographer Eric Oh’s camera bobbing and stumbling along behind him like a drunken dance partner. There’s something akin to Succession’s Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) in the way JB bounces between his increasingly concerned guests with a glassy smile plastered across his face, desperately trying to pretend that everything is okay as he self-destructs. Chernick’s character is kind of odious but also so evidently broken that it’s hard not to have some sympathy for him.

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Each of The Burning Season’s subsequent chapters go back a year into the past. It turns out that Alena and JB have been hooking up at the Luna Lake resort every summer. The characters often don’t intend to wind up in bed again — sometimes they hadn’t expected to meet at all — but they always seem to, regardless of their relationship status. Eventually, The Burning Season’s reverse-order story goes all the way back to Alena and JB’s initial, adolescent meeting where a family holiday leads to a puppy love romance, and then to the tragic incident which has haunted both of them ever since.

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This is a tricky way to tell a love story because The Burning Season begins with JB and Alena at their angriest and most unlikeable, and then works backwards towards their honeymoon phase. But this approach is also effective, too. The more time viewers spend with the characters, the more one can understand their relationship and how they became incapable of being together in a healthy way (and  just as incapable of staying apart). 

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The prickly, nuanced performances from Chernick and Canning help drive The Burning Season’s mystery. Both characters are guarded, seemingly always on the brink of opening up to each other before snapping shut again with a violence that usually leaves their partner in pain. Chernick and Canning convey plenty of unsaid things and subtle emotions, and they both rise to the challenge. 

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The Burning Season’s resort setting — where almost all of the film takes place — also plays a huge role. Garrity and his aforementioned cinematographer, Oh, produce a snapshot of a fondly remembered holiday through soft sunlight and hazy blue nights. It feels like a place that exists separate from the flow of regular life, which explains why Alena and JB find it so easy to behave so recklessly.

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Garrity and Oh also color-code characters and rooms with reds and blues. During the periods featuring Poppy and Tom, the couples are mixed and matched according to a hot and cold color scheme. It all feels a bit too eager for analysis, but it’s pleasant to look at nonetheless.  

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The Burning Season’s reverse story structure also bears a similarity to David Nicholls’ recently re-adapted novel One Day in the way it provides an annual glimpse into an ever-changing relationship, as the power balance is a little different each time Alena and JB meet. One of them always seems a little closer to breaking it off for good and finding happiness elsewhere. Of course, these moments always come with a deeper tinge of tragedy because viewers already know just how badly things are going to end.

Ross McIndoe (@OneBigWiggle) is a freelance writer based in Glasgow. Other bylines include The Skinny, Film School Rejects and Bright Wall/Dark Room.

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