The Sun is Also a Star Review
PG-13: Some suggestive content and language
Warner Bros. Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Alloy Entertainment
Dir: Ry Russo-Young | Screenwriter: Tracy Oliver
Cast: Yara Shahidi, Charles Melton, Jake Choi, John Leguizamo
Release Date: May 17th 2019
Natasha is a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. She is not the type of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when her family is twelve hours away from being deported. Falling in love with him will not be her story. Daniel has always been the good son, the good student, living up to his parents' high expectations. Never a poet. Or a dreamer. But when he sees her, he forgets all that. Something about Natasha makes him think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store - for both of them. Every moment has brought them to this single moment. A million futures lie before them. Which one will come true?
When you have a YA novel adaptation that you need to make stunning and stylish, who do you call? Ry Russo-Young! Her last feature was the 2017 adaptation of Before I Fall starring Zoey Deutch which I liked a lot, and part of that was how she took advantage of the material and gave it its own style for a well-paced story. You can distinguish the transition of chapters in this film as well, and that’s part of the charm.
Charles Melton and Yara Shahidi are hella cute together. Most of the movie is buoyed by their chemistry and, while it starts off a bit awkward, their blossoming romance is the prominent charm of the movie. Both of them are really good. I was already aware of how talented of a superstar Shahidi was because of the few episodes I’ve seen of Black-ish and Grown-ish, but I’ve never seen anything with Charles Melton in it before. I don’t watch Riverdale but his performance makes me curious about the show. The boi is damn captivating. I can see why Camile fell for him. He’s beautiful and he’s lovable.
What makes this narrative shine (besides the leads’ chemistry) is the city that the story is set in. While watching it, there was no doubt in my mind that Young is a New Yorker. You can tell she scouted the hell out of these destinations as the two traveled around the city’s most popular four boroughs (excluding Staten Island because fuck Staten Island). Am I biased and harsh when it comes to movies set in New York City and how it’s depicted?
Hey, New York is my home and, while I do encourage filmmakers and storytellers to depict it in their own language, oftentimes they don’t use it to its full potential. What I love about Natasha and Daniel’s adventure is how they don’t only go to the touristy places in the city, which would usually be such a huge trap for studio romances similar to this. Granted, they do explore a few of those tourist traps, but oftentimes they go to the deeper rare gems of the city. I’m talking places that even I forgot existed, like the Roosevelt Island Tram. Aside from them traveling around the most romantic destinations, there is a love letter attached to the city itself and how it’s the perfect destination for culture and the beauty of immigration. There are sequences where Natasha and Daniel, both from completely different backgrounds, express how New York became their home for their families and how their traditions changed.
Then, there are other elements to Young’s direction that I enjoyed giving a sense of realism to the characters, such as establishing their daily lives by using handheld and shaky cam. As it transitions from setting to setting, instead of just regular wide shots of the city, she incorporates b-roll of people in their environment. The sound mixing incorporating the ambient sounds of the city being loud and busy supports the narrative and makes it feel more real. Small details like that truly benefit the romance of the movie as she lets the beauty and open vastness of New York be their teenagers’ playground.
Given its far-fetched premise, screenwriter Tracy Oliver (who is killing it these days for Black screenwriters) provides enough dimension to the characters based on Yoon’s novel that it makes you relate to them and root for their romance. Natasha is a Jamaican girl (with no accent?) whose days of freedom are coming to an end as she prepares for her family’s deportation. Daniel is a Korean boy whose freedom is limited because of his family’s traditions and expectations. The conversations they share as they get to know each other as fast as they can are often cute. But some of the scenes… well...
Although the leads provide great chemistry, there are parts about their characters that never felt genuine to me. First off, these characters are seventeen and their dialect felt a bit too mature for their age. Their entire romance is based off the scientific method and by that moment I’m thinking, “Which high school in NYC is teaching these kids how to use science lingo as pick-up lines? Brooklyn Tech?” The dialogue would’ve hit for me if the leads were slightly older… at least in the midst of their senior year of high school as opposed to rising seniors, because it's just hard for me to believe that dialogue of kids their age would be based around words such as:
While I love how authentically the city is presented, I wish it was a bit consistent with some of the fantastical elements that are incorporated. The story resembles much of a fairytale where fate plays the major role (and is the prominent theme). At times - mostly within the first act - those aspects are present, but then they’re completely dropped halfway through as it becomes more of a genuine city romance, making those fantastical elements too much of a stretch to believe. Early on, Daniel and his friend are riding the train and as it stops - as they usually do here… too damn much - the train dispatcher delivers a speech about lateness. While it’s a beautiful sentiment that progresses Daniel’s motivations, it's a bit of a cheesy stretch.
Speaking of cheesy, the entire movie is. There’s no way around it. I was challenging myself by trying to not bring up the word “cheese” in this review, but there are so many moments where they dive headfirst into it. I was really enjoying the entirety of the second act, but once Daniel takes Natasha to his family’s store, the scenes stop feeling genuine as they escalate so damn fast for dramatic purposes. Characters begin to overreact on a whim considering what place in story the film is at. Some of the dialogue is questionable, if not very bad, because of this and there are several serious moments that you can’t take seriously at all. There is a scene where Daniel fights his older brother, but the impact of the scene is undercut by the location. I won’t spoil where it takes place, but when you watch it, you can’t help but laugh. Because of the overly dramatic cheesy moments, the placement of the story becomes way too transparent.
Lastly, I had a hard time with Natasha’s introduction. She is a character who starts off not believing in love, but she never expresses it. Since the film opens up with her narration, explaining how her parents fell in love because of fate, it’s never made obvious that she resents the emotion, based on her narration. So, when she meets Daniel and immediately tells him that she doesn’t believe in love, it didn’t feel natural for the character we were introduced to, making their romance a bit difficult to jump on board with when it starts. But as the film goes on, it ends up being cute.
As a filmmaker, Ry Russo-Young does a great job with storytelling with the material she’s given. She makes the narrative stylish and well-paced and, most of all, lets her lead stars shine. Something like this could’ve been incredibly bad, if not generic. It’s cheesy as hell, but it’s above average when compared to most YA adaptations of this genre, which I think might be some of the same criticisms I had for Before I Fall. We completed the circle!
The Sun is Also a Star may be a forgettable YA romance, but the onscreen chemistry between the leads and the authentic filmmaking by Ry-Russo Young makes this a slightly above-average affair.
Rating: 3/5 | 64%
