The Sun is Also a Star (Review)
The Sun is Also a Star Offers a New Perspective on Old Cliches.
Sure, it might be shameless and riddled with cliches, but I found myself touched by how well executed The Sun is Also a Star was. The film focuses on the notion of destiny and the role it plays in everyday life even for those who don’t believe in such sentimental nonsense. However, The Sun is Also a Star takes a much grander view of the seeming randomness of life and all the coincidences that have to line up in order for any given moment to be possible. Despite a seemingly elementary philosophical concept at its core, the films easy to root for leads share such engrossing chemistry that it’s hard to really give a damn.
The Sun is Also a Star strives to mix pragmatism and romanticism in a homogeneous amalgam that admires the seeming randomness that makes up life. The film opens with the famed Carl Sagan quote, “We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.” A perfect opening considering that the entire film takes place over a course of a day. Through a series of serendipitous coincidences, Natasha (Yara Shahidi) and Daniel (Charles Melton) are thrown together. At first glance, the two seem like a poorly matched couple as Natasha believe in cold hard facts and the scientific method while Daniel is more of a dreamer who believes that there’s a reason for everything. Despite this though, the two are inexplicably drawn to each other and Daniel tries to prove over the course of 24 hours that love does exist.
I know, The Sun is Also a Star looks like another terrible teen romance novel at first glance. However, I found myself getting sucked in despite the protests from the more logical parts of my brain. This is mostly thanks to the chemistry between Shahidi and Melton. The two are simply perfect together and make for a couple that you just can’t help but root for no matter how stacked the odds are against them. Thankfully, the film takes it’s time before sparks start to fly between them, giving them plenty of time to demonstrate just how charming each of them over the course of their relatively short live courtship. As I mentioned, the film takes place over the course of a single day, which seems like a rushed romance, but that’s because The Sun is Also a Star embraces the fact that young romances burn brightly thanks to those crazy hormones. Of course, it also doesn’t hurt that the two leads are ridiculously good looking. However, their good looks aren’t what makes these two so appealing, it just helps them to be all the more disarming.
Writer Tracy Oliver (who surprisingly enough co-write Little earlier this year) gives our two leads some incredible dialogue to work with. This is especially true with Daniel who sports some of the smoothest lines I’ve seen in a romantic movie since the days of Humphrey Bogart. It’s hardly a masterpiece, but Oliver certainly makes it easy for the characters to show off their charm and sense of humor as they flirt back and forth over the course of the film. However, the film also seems to rely on the audiences ability to suspend their own disbelief as it stacks “signs” for the couple one on top of the other. Then again, not all of them are obvious at first. Oliver plays with levels when it comes to the events that conspire to bring the two together. Over the course of the film, it’s easy to believe that the universe is conspiring on their behalf and that just makes the onscreen romance feel right.
I have to hand it to director Ry Russo-Young. Her approach to this film was spot on. Thematically, The Sun is Also a Star is a movie that walks a fine line between making the individual feel insignificant in the grand scheme of things and exploring the incredible importance of every aspect of our lives. She uses incredible panning shots of New York City, slowly rotating the skylines to offer breathtaking new perspectives throughout the film. At the same time, she uses handheld camera work for the more intimate scenes between the young couple, creating an almost voyeuristic feeling to it all. Combined, these manage to create a perfect visual metaphor for the thematic elements at work in The Sun is Also a Star, which makes the task for the two leads all the easier to accomplish.
The Sun is Also a Star isn’t a film that is going to stand up to scrutiny. It’s cheesy at times, shamelessly sentimental at others, and spouts off freshman philosophy as though it were some grand revelation about the nature of humanity. Still, I couldn’t help but fall for it all. Personally, I feel like 2019 has been a pretty good year for romantic movies so far with Five Feet Apart. The Long Shot, and now The Sun is Also a Star. Of course, none of these films will be especially fun for the more curmudgeonly audiences in the audience, but even despite my jaded world view I can’t help but love the message of hope that life is working towards something wonderful at the heart of this movie. I guess I’m just a hopeless romantic at heart.
