Middle-aged Sue (Maggie O’Neill) chalks up yet another romantic disappointment and prepares to re-enter the dating circuit, a large glass of red wine in hand. In the unlikely setting of her brother’s funeral, she meets a taciturn, leather-clad biker named Ron (Tony Pitts). A connection between them seems to fill the vacuum of loneliness. But then Sue meets Ron’s son Anthony (Harry Trevaldwyn), a flamboyant wannabe dancer and social media influencer. After a promising start, in which Sue and Anthony bond over Thai food and astrology, Anthony subsequently decides that he hates her.
The uneven feature film debut from Leo Leigh (son of Mike, and it shows, in the film’s prickly empathy for its abrasive characters), Sweet Sue works best as a portrait of a complex, not wholly likable woman. Where it falters is in the relationship between Sue and the increasingly withdrawn Ron, who retreats as a character while Sue and Anthony spit insults and sequins at each other.
