Written by Tom Moore
Even though it presents some decent performances, a decent style, and some promising ideas, The Sun is Also a Star struggles to live up to the sophisticated ideas it thinks it’s presenting and ends up being a boring film that doesn’t leave a strong impression.
Based on the YA novel of the same name by Nicola Yoon, it follows Natasha (Yara Shahidi), a young student who considers her true home to be New York City, but is about to be deported with her family back to Jamaica unless she can do something. On her way to meet a lawyer that could keep her family from being deported, she meets Daniel (Charles Melton), a Korean-American student whose parents are forcing him to become a doctor even though he has a passion for poetry. A strong believer in fate and love, Daniel senses a connection to Natasha and says that he can get her to fall in love with him, even though she says she doesn’t believe in love. With fate seemingly playing a strong part in their single day together and that “x-factor” Daniel says they have, these two attempt to block out the world in order to grow closer to one another, but eventually must reconcile with their issues and question whether fate really brought them together.
Honestly, I’ve never seen a movie I desperately wanted to like while watching it more than The Sun is Also a Star. There’s a sense of sophistication and philosophical thought that’s interesting to see and leads to interesting conversations between characters about fate. The cinematography is nice, and the use of color helps characters and certain details standout much better. However, that’s sort of where the “better” stops as the film offers a lot but can’t really deliver on much.
I couldn’t really connect to either Natasha or Daniel and the film doesn’t do enough to let viewers get to know them. Other than them coming from immigrant families and having opposite mindsets of how things are, with Natasha being more logical and Daniel being more philosophical, I never really understood who they are. I actually felt as if I understood more about the cultures they come from through small cut-aways that give more details about the point they’re making than I ever did about them. Instead, the film really wants to make viewers buy into them “loving” one another because “the universe” wants them to be together, but it forgets to make viewers want them to be together too.
The film also attempts to have its characters and story come off as important and thought-provoking, but relies too heavily on predictable story beats that, ironically, drag these two aspects down and makes it near-impossible for the film to achieve what it wants to. The film feels like it thinks highly of itself and that believe that its sophistication could carry its story and give complexity to its characters. I almost got the impression that it thinks that it’s some modern take on Shakespearean love. However, its attempts at “complexity” just create dialogue that’s hard to connect to and performances that lack any excitement or passion. Even the story of The Sun is Also a Star is predictable at almost every turn and leans on clichés that feel straight out the YA romance handbook. The film’s focus on fate really only makes things predictable and the film comes across as a puzzle that can be solved the second it’s presented to you.
There’re also some missed opportunities to create complexity with through the leads’ families’ immigrant backgrounds and the supposed importance of New York City. Honestly, I couldn’t tell you why NYC is such an important part of The Sun is Also a Star other than that Natasha has lived there for nine years. Outside of the opening, it’s never really brought up again and it doesn’t have a strong connection to the film’s central relationship. Personally, the importance NYC has on the film is to have a reason for there to be an obscene amount of overhead shots of the city that don’t connect to the film at all and just felt like the film was padding for time. It’s honestly disappointing, as the film’s location could’ve actually played a considerable role because of the role Ellis Island played in the lives of immigrants. Especially considering the struggle DACA students face and the constant fear they have of being deported back to a country and traditions they don’t connect to. Some of these ideas are present, but they never are given a strong enough light to leave viewers with something to think about.
It’s unfortunate that a film and a story like The Sun is Also a Star just couldn’t live up to its potential and that its reliance on predictable romance tropes is its downfall. There’s definitely something there and if it took complete control of the ideas and sophistication it attempts to have, it maybe could’ve broken traditions just like its protagonists want to.
