Jessica’s Thoughts – The Sun Is Also a Star
I’ll preface this entire review by saying I have never read the source material, the original YA novel by Nicola Yoon. And I don’t intend to.
I spent the majority of this movie cringing in secondhand embarrassment at these unbelievable characters but more on behalf of these poor young actors who took the source material and script way too seriously. I won’t even mention the dearth of cheesy lines spewed throughout or give a count of how many awkward stares the two leads had between them. To quote Mean Girls, “the limit does not exist.” Although one takeaway I plan on using in my own life would be when anything remotely coincidental happens, I’ll just put on a goofy smile and with a twinkle in my eye and whisper, “Destiny.”
The Sun Is Also a Star was trying to be a hip Serendipity for a “woke” millennial generation. It attempted to take aim at the edgy, controversial topic of immigration… without any ammo.
Instead of dwelling on the fact that Natasha’s parents entered the country illegally, they focus on how unfair it is for Natasha to get deported when “New York is her home.” It seemed more content to slap around romantic ideals of home and the feeling of belonging to a city (which, it’s New York, give me a friggin’ break)—painting the picture of ICE and the government being heartless toward immigrants—than to really dive deep on the circumstances surrounding the deportation. It neglected to say or show how, more likely than not, Natasha’s parents were probably very active, rather than annoyingly resigned, in trying to reverse the deportation and in the process for becoming citizens. The fact that her father was unceremoniously caught during a surprise ICE raid was no doubt the catalyst for some serious legal blubbering that isn’t shown at all on screen.
I do love when the immigration agent tells her, “It’s going to be all right...Some of these people are going back to Syria and Afghanistan,” trying to put it in perspective for her that getting deported to Jamaica does suck but is not immediately life-threatening. And the culture in Jamaica is one of relaxation, a chill lifestyle. She’ll live. I nearly laughed out loud when she turned around and, choking on her emotions, says how she isn’t okay. But… it’s just Jamaica, sweetie.
Her reaction to begging for an appointment with a pro bono immigration lawyer was understandably desperate, but ultimately, I found it petulant. Racing for a stay of execution the day before the execution, so to speak, was just delaying the inevitable and causing way more negative than positive. She still had to pack up all her shit, dammit!
Deus Ex Machina. Daniel writes it in his poem journal in the morning, and not long after he spots Natasha in Grand Central with an obnoxious “Deus Ex Machina” printed on the back of her jacket. The term is Latin for “god from the machine”—as Encyclopedia Britannica states, “a person or thing that appears or is introduced into a situation suddenly and unexpectedly and provides an artificial or contrived solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty.” I’m not sure I need to delve deep here, but um, this was way too on the nose for my taste.
The couple spends most of their time traipsing all over the city, to great comedic effect, since all sense of believable travel time to get from one place to another is thrown out the window. But speaking of ridiculous, I haven’t seen a more outrageous presentation of a cold-hearted female more concerned with “the scientific method” since the dismal child character in Dumbo from earlier this year. She spouts that love isn’t real...but she recounts how her parents fell in love under serendipitous circumstances. How her mother didn’t expect to fall in love and blah blah blah. For talking such a big game, she easily pulls a Romeo & Juliet, telling Daniel “I love you” at the end of just one day of knowing him. Her defiance toward love and insistence on empirical evidence—all in the face of her impending deportation and the seeming indifference from those who could possibly “Hail Mary pass” her situation—screamed that it’s not that she didn’t believe in love, but rather she couldn’t bring herself to hope that day. She was simply “down in the dumps” as they say—after all, it was a pretty shitty day.
The title The Sun Is Also a Star is explicitly said in the movie while Natasha rants (she’s so passionate that she stands up for this) in a Norebang about something or other, complaining that ~the sun is also a star~ (Aha!) It wasn’t terribly clear, and I didn’t particularly care. At best, the line was mildly emotional and played into Natasha’s passion for astronomy. At worst, it was a contrived, empty line that held little meaning.
Both Daniel and Natasha give some context to their home life by detailing the story of their parents, and in the case of Daniel, a 101 lesson on Korean culture. Because I consume a ton of Korean entertainment, I particularly understood the Korean side. I must say that my biggest nitpick was how everyone in his family spoke very choppy Korean, not the smooth cadence of a fluent speaker. It was apparent that the actors were not fluent speakers or that they were, for some reason, breaking from the typical rhythm and even singsongy quality of the language.
One thing that was consistent between Daniel and Natasha was that both kids were at odds with their parents’ mentality, and it was portrayed as the parents were wrong and the kids were right. Natasha had every right to ignore her parents and try to pull off the impossible (even blaming John Leguizamo’s lawyer for not fulfilling his promise to get them to stay in the country long enough to gain lawful citizenship). It’s forgivable that she missed 15 calls from her parents and slept out on the street with a total stranger. Daniel had every right to blow off an important interview for Dartmouth, caring more about “getting the girl” than getting the recommendation. (Why John Leguizamo is staging the interview when he’s an immigration lawyer and not even a medical doctor, which is I guess the undergrad program Daniel was applying for, is beyond me.) If I was 14, I might have agreed with all these statements… Except I’m not, and these are just emotional, selfish, angsty teenagers. Natasha should have taken her ass back home to pack and be supportive to her definitely stressed parents. Daniel should have completed the interview and gained the rec. Doesn’t he know that undergrads switch majors like 50 times anyway? To be a doctor, you don’t need to major in “pre-med”! You can major in Creative Writing and still make it to med school. Why isn’t he considering that Dartmouth probably has a decent liberal arts program?
I will close with this: The soundtrack had absolutely no business being that fresh. It was almost like the music coordinator was asked to provide their own personal playlist that gave the ~vibe~ of “two teenagers falling in love in New York City.” It was annoyingly great. Probably the best thing about the movie.
Considering The Sun Is Also a Star sits at a 52% on Rotten Tomatoes, and—against a budget of $9 million—has made, at the time of writing, just $3.5 million worldwide, I’d say critics and audiences would agree with my poor assessment of this certified YA flop. Some stories should stay in the pages of books, where they live quietly on bookshelves and loudly in the minds of passionate YA readers.
2/5 Stars