“Midnight Sun” is a teenage romance that just didn’t make quite as well as other recent teenage romance films at the box office, such as “The Fault in Our Stars” and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.”
For those of you who read the book or watched the film “Everything, Everything,” “Midnight Sun” will feel awfully familiar.
Released on March 23, "Midnight Sun" was directed by Scott Speer with screenplay by Eric Kirsten.
The film followed a young girl of 17 with a disease that comes with an extreme sensitivity to sunlight. This sensitivity makes it only possible for her to leave her house at night.
One night, Katie, who is played by Bella Thorne, meets her lifelong crush, Charlie, who is played by Patrick Schwarzenegger. Sparks immediately begin to fly between the two and Charlie ends up changing Katie’s nighttime routine.
The young love is kind of sappy, and kind of creepy, as Katie has crushed on Charlie since she was a child and spends her time cooped up inside her house watching him from her window. Think, Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” music video from 2008.
As one could imagine, something goes wrong, as it always done in teen romances movies, and there is a complication with Katie’s disease. The two are then forced to come to terms with their relationship and if it is possible to continue within the context of Katie’s lifestyle.
One of the things that made this movie so exciting was it’s casting of the famous young actress Bella Thorne, who made it big in her Disney Channel show “Shake It Up” and her most famous movies “The Duff,” “Blended,” and “The Babysitter.”
The movie also includes the well-known stars, Patrick Schwarzenegger, who is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s son. Katie’s father is also played by a well known name — Saturday Night Live star and comedian Rob Riggle.
As much as I do love a young adult romance-comedy, this one wasn’t easy for me to enjoy. As much as I wanted to fall in love along with the characters, I just couldn’t. I was stuck in between loving and hating their extremely cheesy and incredibly cringey relationship.
Their love was cute, but it was almost too perfect to be realistic. The characters were extremely hard to relate to because of how impossible their relationship would be to maintain in real life.
The characters and I obviously do not live in the same universe.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
If you are looking for a really beautiful romance movie, this is not the one for you. This is nothing like "The Notebook" and you should probably save your money on a ticket.
Timber Mabes is a culture reporter with the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @timbermabes.
