CHARLES MELTON AND YARA SHAHIDI TV
Sadly, the charms they’ve shown on TV don’t translate here. At best, they seem bemused by each other. But the pair shares no chemistry onscreen.
Yes, Shahidi and Melton are beautiful, and it should be easy to believe they’d fall for each other. The bigger problem however, is that I never bought into Natasha and Daniel’s romance. But as it is, these sections feel tangential and cringingly old fashioned in a story of two modern teens. If done in a zippy way that mirrors the kind of explainer vids that often go viral online, this device might have given energy-if not urgency-to the film. And for each, we’re not shown these characters talking to someone, but instead, a sizzle reel-like edit or planets, or a black couple laughing, or archival footage of wig-making factories while a calm voiceover plays. There’s one about how Natasha’s parents met, one about how Daniel’s parents came to own a wig shop in Harlem, one about the universe itself.
Perhaps it’s that the film is cluttered with montage sequences that feel like PowerPoint presentations. Perhaps that’s because of Russo-Young’s heavy reliance on B-roll, which shows people on the streets, skyscrapers, and other NYC cliches to give a quick sense of an area instead of showing her leads interacting with the area. Though plenty of the dialogue involves appointments-and should thereby set up a ticking clock tension-there’s no sense of time as the characters stroll from one scenic neighborhood to another. It’s exactly the kind of high-stakes juvenile drama I look for in YA! But despite the stakes and the characters’ “now or never” attitudes, there’s no sense of urgency to the film. It’s an intriguing premise: one day to find love and your path. Between appointments, these two tumble through Chinatown, to a black hair care shop in Harlem, to a karaoke room, and a riverside city park, along the way finding a connection they can’t deny. So Daniel pleads for one day to change her mind. There’s just one (more) problem, Natasha doesn’t believe in love. And when he spots Natasha in Grand Central Station wearing a bomber jacket with “deus ex machina” embroidered on it, he believes he’s found his muse or his soul mate or maybe both. But secretly, Daniel dreams of being a writer. Also 17, he’s on his way to a college interview that could put him on the path to being a doctor, which would make his Korean immigrant parents very proud. But these plans are derailed when a hit-and-run meet-cute introduces her to Daniel Bae (Charles Melton). To stay in the New York she loves, Natasha plans to spend her last day meeting with caseworkers, lawyers, and whoever else she must to get a reversal on the deportation order. Tomorrow, her family will return to Jamaica, which is technically her homeland but not her home. But unfortunately, The Sun Is Also A Star fell far short of my expectations, offering a romance that never manages to shine.ĭirected by Before I Fall helmer Ry Russo-Young, The Sun Is Also A Star begins with 17-year-old Natasha Kingsley (Shahidi), an aspiring scientist who fears her life and career ambitions will be derailed because of her parents’ impending deportation. Bonus: it stars Grown-ish’s Yara Shahidi and Riverdale’s Charles Melton, two performers who’ve shown a compelling charisma on their respective series. Plus, this one was based on a YA novel by Nicola Yoon, the author behind Everything Everything, an adaptation that had me swooning. I’m a sucker for an even half-decent romance, and as a long-time New Yorker can’t get enough of seeing love stories spilled across our boroughs.
A hopeless romantic meets a hard-nosed realist, and together they fall in love while making New York City their playground.
CHARLES MELTON AND YARA SHAHIDI MOVIE
On paper, The Sun Is Also A Star looked like the kind of movie I’d totally fall for.
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