directed by Ry Russo-Young, starring Yara Shahidi, Charles Melton
The Sun Is Also A Star is a fairy tale, adapted from the popular YA novel by Nicola Yoon. It's a day in the life of Natasha Kingsley (grown-ish's Yara Shahidi), a high school senior from a Jamaican immigrant family in Brooklyn who makes a last-ditch effort to prevent them all from being deported the very next day. By pure chance, on the way to INS in Federal Plaza, she crosses paths with Daniel Bae (Riverdale's Charles Melton), a high school senior from a Korean immigrant family in Queens who, while on his way to a future he doesn't want as a Dartmouth medical school student, decides that Natasha is his destiny. All of this information is easily gleaned from the many TV promos and theater previews we've seen of the film. To add a twist, Natasha is presented as a smart, data-obsessed realist who doesn't believe in love while Daniel is willing to buck a medical career because of his obsession with poetry.
For reasons that I don't get, and only serve the film, the two are obsessed with the concept of Deus Ex Machina, which as I understand it is a term applied to narratives like this one where an unexplained and totally contrived miracle save the day. There are numerous coincidences in the film, first with Daniel spotting Natasha in Grand Central Station and trying to follow her (stalker), then in randomly seeing her again on the downtown subway and then snatching her back from being hit by a reckless driver on the street. And that's just for starters. For these two lovebirds, the term "Deus Ex Machina" (emblazoned on the back of Natasha's satin jacket) seems to simply mean fate and miracles. But for those who craft narratives, it's a cheap solution for wrapping up a plot that has become way too hairy to resolve in a realistic way. And that's exactly what we get here.
It's a fairy tale to think that love can be achieved in one single day. In this story, though Natasha states early on that she doesn't believe in love, after a few hours with this tall, handsome stranger she is eagerly making out with him (hormones, people.) It's also a distinctly female fantasy to have a gorgeous young man be completely dedicated to making love happen within a day, and Daniel is sexy and persistent without seeming creepy. And only in a fairy tale would a busy immigration lawyer (played by John Leguizamo) turn into a fairy godmother who takes on the case of a last-minute teenaged client. It would also take a fairy tale for a pair of teenagers to spend the night together sleeping outside in the park and not be a. mugged, b. arrested, or c. beaten within an inch of their lives by worried parents.
Like the walking-and-talking-across-the-city film tradition it follows, most notably the Ethan Hawke-Julie Delpy trilogy Before Sunrise/Before Sunset/Before Midnight and even the Chris Rock-Rosario Dawson comedy Top Five, The Sun Is Also A Star has the two leads pose leading questions that pull these two met-cute young folks into thoughtful discussion and instant intimacy while making the rounds of appointments and errands across the city. They encounter some hurdles, most notably when Natasha finally reveals that she's on the verge of leaving the country for good and that they have no viable future. Their only culture clash seems to come from his family; when Natasha comes along as Daniel delivers a bank deposit to his father's business, it turns out to be a black hair care emporium in Harlem (Daniel gives us a history of how Koreans cornered the black hair market). While there, his lunkhead brother makes a racist joke about her being a shoplifter and his father offers her the economy sized jar of relaxer to tame her natural hair. The scene is awkward and mortifying; out on the street again with Daniel, Natasha shrugs it off.
There is no denying the physical beauty and sex appeal of the film's two stars, and the camera lingers lovingly on their faces to make sure that we fall in love with them, too. What's more, they are given interesting and romantic backdrops from the big city in which to fall, adding to the spell the film attempts to weave. The idea of a romance that could occur in one day between two apparently thoughtful and aware young people seemed appealing to my middle-aged sensibilities. Even though I am old enough so that the pillow-lipped Shahidi and dimpled Melton could be my grandchildren. As I watched the film I became deeply and profoundly affected, yea, near tears with sentimental longing and romantic regret. Did my tears well up in response to the burgeoning and rather hasty and oh so unrealistic teen romance beign presented as the film's primary narrative? No. My emotions were pricked by my love of New York City.
Big Apple, I miss you so much! Though we had to break up our love affair, I still treasure our precious memories.
You see, New York City is the town where I was born and raised. I haven't lived there for a few decades now. But glimpsed lovingly through the lens of cinematographer Autumn Durald, as lead characters Natasha and Daniel spend a day wandering, the city today looked as appealing, challenging, beautiful and grimey as ever. In The Sun Is Also A Star, viewers ride the subway along elevated tracks from the boroughs, and underground from Wall Street to 125th Street, from Borough Hall to East 86th Street. We revisit Caffe Reggio, a landmark of Greenwich Village. We glide through the Hayden Planetarium on the upper East Side, watching the sky show. We stroll through Chinatown and SoHo and along the East River. We get to ride the tram to Roosevelt Island. We traverse 125th Street in Harlem. We cross Broadway and Lincoln Center and spend moments in the marble great room at Grand Central Station considering its zodiac-emblazoned ceiling. The camera pans over the city's bridges, Central Park, the Chrysler Building. And I'm swooning.
I was instantly brought back to the days of my teenage years, when I knew almost every corner and every neighborhood of Manhattan and felt lucky to be there. Because mine was an untraditional school, our gym classes were held in Central Park or Hunter College or at the 14th Street Bowl-Mor Lanes (now demolished) and we had to get ourselves there on time the best way we could, as though we were already in college. We frequented foreign films on East 68th street, and midnight showings at blockbuster cinemas in Times Square or on 96th Street, we went clubbing around the East Side, shopped bargains along Delancey and Canal Streets, went to the Jazzmobile shows outside by Grant's Tomb on Riverside Drive, went roller-skating indoors in the meatpacking district, took dance and music lessons in Harlem, rode the Staten Island ferry back and forth for fun. Living in the outer boroughs, as some of my friends and I did, meant that when we went into The City on the weekends or during the summers, we stayed for the day; we found ways to kill time in department stores, hotel lounge areas, park benches, the museums, the 42nd Street Fifth Avenue Library, neighborhood cafes and luncheonettes, and movie matinees. When carfare was an issue, we walked the city blocks from the east side to the west side, from uptown to midtown and back, particularly in the summers. The food we ate -- the bagels and street cart hotdogs and knishes and hot pretzels and toasted chestnuts and Jamaican meat patties and cuchifritos and Chinese dumplings and pizza -- oh the pizza! We didn't have cars, we didn't go to high school dances, we had no prom, our parents didn't belong to clubs. We were very independent big city kids. And that's what this movie reminded me of, the golden days when New York was my playground.
But I digress. As in most fairy tales, eventually there is a happy ending. Though things looked bleak for our modern-day Romeo and Juliet, and they were lost to one another, coincidence -- nay, Deus-ex-Machina aka an act of God -- puts the erstwhile lovers in the same place at the same time and the film ends with a kiss, as all good love stories should.
The story doesn't make a lot of earthly sense, but it's sweet and a great vehicle for its stars. In the meantime, I'm planning to head back to the Big Apple for a visit quite soon.
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