‘Sunny Dancer’ review: Bella Ramsey heads confident and upbeat UK teen drama

Dir/scr: George Jacques. UK. 2026. 106mins

After tackling the issue of depression in his 2023 debut Black Dog, 26-year-old UK actor-turned-filmmaker (and former Screen Star Of Tomorrow) George Jacques now confronts the no less weighty topic of teen cancer. Starring Bella Ramsey as a reserved 17-year-old cancer survivor who attends a summer camp for kids like her, the film is admirably unflinching in its exploration of the psychological fallout of illness. And while it sometimes loses itself to flights of melodramatic adolescent fantasy, it confidently wraps its heavy themes in a peppy, accessible package.

Wraps its heavy themes in a peppy, accessible package

Premiering as the opening film of Berlin’s Generation 14plus strand, Sunny Dancer could well attract further festival attention, particularly in events and sidebars focusing on young adult stories. The Last Of Us star Ramsey leads an ensemble cast of hot young Brits, including fellow Screen Stars Of Tomorrow Ruby Stokes, Conrad Khan and Daniel Quinn-Toye (who will next be seen in the lead of big-budget Amazon MGM sci-fi Voltron); that, together with the presence of Neil Patrick Harris as the upbeat camp leader, could help pique wider interest. Away from home turf, the film’s decidedly British sense of humour and cultural references may prove more of a challenge

Ivy (Ramsey) is 10 months into remission from leukaemia and – despite the best efforts of her well-meaning parents (Jessica Gunning and James Norton) – the experience of battling serious illness has left her morose and adrift. She reluctantly agrees to attend the four-week CRF (‘Children Run Free’) summer camp for kids who have experienced cancer and, despite her initially spiky demeanour, soon befriends roommate Ella (Stokes) and a group of cool kids, including Jake (Quinn-Toye), with whom she develops a spark.

Jacques’ screenplay is clearly influenced by, and follows the normal contours of, US teen movies – the first flushes of romance, messy montages of drinking, dancing and roughhousing, seemingly out-of-touch adults who actually start to make an impact. The colour palette is warm and inviting and the rural landscape in which the camp is set (the film was shot at Auchengillan Outdoor Centre near Scotland’s Loch Lomond) offers unlimited horizons. The energetic score from Este Haim and Zachary Dawes, joined by a bevvy of pop hits from the likes of The Scissor Sisters and Goldfrapp, keeps things moving apace.

It’s certainly – and very deliberately – a world away from the sterile greys and hushed tones of the hospital wards in which such dramas traditionally unfold. Yet, underneath it all, Jacques – whose own mother developed breast cancer when he was in his teens and who is an ambassador for the Teenage Cancer Trust – deftly weaves a more sombre undercurrent. These kids are not defined by their illness, but it has undeniably shaped who they are. The realities of the situation often break through their defiant surface: Jake’s panic attacks, Ivy’s aggression, the pitch black gallows humour used as a defence mechanism by the swaggering Ralph (Earl Cave, who bears a striking resemblance to his musician father Nick).

At times, Sunny Dancer seems to lean too heavily into the heady, hormonal (and notably entirely heterosexual) whirlwind of teen emotions, and can sometimes overstate the transformative nature of the summer camp experience. But it never lets us forget that these are young people on the cusp of an adulthood they thought they may never get to experience.

Not only have all of these characters been isolated by their illness, but they live with the constant fear of remission, that normality may be snatched away at any moment. So it’s perhaps understandable that they are operating at full throttle, grabbing at experiences – love, sex, friendship – with an intensity that can feel overwhelming to those who have been lucky enough to take these things for granted.