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 h... (Full plot summary below)
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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?
Leave your thoughts about The Sun Is Also a Star.
| IndieWireJude DryWhile great direction isn’t the worst problem to have, the fact that the writing and acting couldn’t quite live up to their gorgeous surroundings hollows the experience of watching it. |
| The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldIt’s all quite wistfully romantic, and mostly winningly so, despite the sometimes wise-way-beyond-their-years dialogue and not always plausible plot. |
| Original-CinLiam LaceyWatching the teen romance The Sun Is Also a Star, starring the splendid-looking young couple Yara Shahidi (Blackish) and Charles Melton (Riverdale’s Reggie)), is something like wading through fields of pink candy floss and suddenly finding a speck of grit. |
| Arizona RepublicKerry LengelUnder the perfectly paced direction of Ry Russo-Young (“Before I Fall”), Shahidi and Melton develop an easy chemistry on the way toward a satisfying denouement that’s neither tear-jerking tragedy nor fairy-tale wish fulfillment. |
| ReelViewsJames Berardinelli"Before Sunrise" is a great movie. The Sun is also a Star isn’t. It’s not horrible and it may please its target audience but it misses an opportunity to have a deeper and less surgically-targeted impact than what it achieves. |
| VarietyAmy NicholsonSure, Sagan’s scientific method dominates the universe. But here on earth, this crowd-pleaser convinces us to spend one day savoring an American Dream. |
| Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranDirector Russo-Young, whose roots are in independent film, has brought a bit of a welcome indie sensibility to the proceedings. |
| Rolling StoneDavid FearThere’s such beautiful artisanal touches that Russo-Young adds to what could have been a standard YA-lit flick and so much that the actors do with scenes of people just talking that you can’t write it off. And there are too many dramatic moments that flatline when they should spike, too many plot turns that feel false and too much reliance on “coincidence” as some higher-power string-yanking to say it completely works. |
| The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Melissa VincentPerhaps it’s the film’s predictability (and delightful corniness) that contributes to its charm. |
| RogerEbert.comChristy LemireThe leads are so lovely and the city is so shimmery that it’s hard not to get caught up in its spell — for a while, at least, until its corny coda destroys whatever goodwill the film has generated. |
