Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Two young New Yorkers begin to fall in love over the course of a single day, as a series of potentially life-altering meetings loom over their heads - hers concerning her family’s deportation to Jamaica, and his concerning an education at Dartmouth.
The Sun Is Also a Star adapts Nicola Yoon's YA novel with a charming single-day premise that gives the romance a ticking-clock urgency, and the deportation subplot adds meaningful stakes beyond typical teen romance. The NYC backdrop is photographed with warmth and energy, capturing the city's multicultural texture. However, the leads (Yara Shahidi and Charles Melton) struggle to generate consistent chemistry, and Melton in particular delivers a stilted performance that undercuts emotional payoff. The ending feels rushed and tonally uncertain, neither committing fully to the bittersweet nor the triumphant. Novelty gets a modest boost for centering a Jamaican-American and Korean-American story in a mainstream YA romance, though the formula underneath remains familiar.