20260525-20180406-0-63629583
Critic's Rating: 2.5
Story: 17-year-old Katie (Bella Thorne) has a rare genetic illness that makes her hyper sensitive to sunlight. Forbidden from stepping out at daytime, fate makes her run into her childhood crush Charlie (Patrick Schwarzenegger) at night. The two fall in love in the moonlight, swim in the ocean and kiss under the stars, knowing there won’t be an ever after.

Review: Be it ‘A walk to Remember’, ‘Me Before You’, ‘The Fault in our stars’ and the most recent ‘Everything, Everything’. Several romantic dramas in the past with similar themes, better performances and superior execution, have managed to tug at our heartstrings. These movies ably captured the beauty and thrill of an unlikely romance, and it becoming the ray of hope in the lives of the protagonists who had given up on their dreams. The writing and screen adaptations in most cases, made you anticipate miracles, hoping eternal happiness for the couples struggling to survive. They worked effortlessly because of its unique treatment to an otherwise done to death plot.

Sadly, the sun never really shines on Midnight Sun. It is an unimaginative copy of all the popular films in the genre with not one unique quality to it. The only takeaway from this film is a disease — Xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) and that’s not what you expect from it.

Despite a likeable lead pair, the writing is so jaded, cliched and shallow that you don’t feel for the couple, their love or their loss. In its under two hours runtime, the mushy story and character development are so hastily handled that nothing looks convincing. Especially the ‘love at first sight’, feels orchestrated, convenient and downright predictable.

Bella Thorne is a pleasant actor and singer. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s son Patrick, who is a chocolate boy version of his famous dad, relatively has more facial expressions than his father but fails to engage you emotionally with his performance.

If cliched romantic tearjerkers interest you, you can give this half-hearted exercise a shot. But if you wish to watch a timeless romance, turn to ‘Call me by your name’. As they say, there are too many mediocre things in life and love (or love stories) shouldn’t be one of them.

Summary / Analysis

Spoiler alert! Please do not read the following plot summary if you have not seen the film.
Sheltered since early childhood, Katie Price lives with a life-threatening sensitivity to sunlight caused by the rare genetic condition, xeroderma pigmentosum. During the day, she is housebound, having only her father, Jack and her best friend, Morgan, to accompany her. Katie comes out of the house every night, when the sun is not present.

One night, she is noticed and asked out by her longtime crush, Charlie, while playing guitar at the train station. Katie leaves suddenly, and forgets her notebook, which Charlie keeps. He returns the next day, and gives it to Katie when she shows up to retrieve it. He explains to her how he got his injury that prevented him from getting a scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley before kissing her on one of the boats.

However, Katie has yet to tell Charlie of her condition, despite her father warning her to. Charlie takes Katie out for a night to Seattle, where they go to a live show, and Charlie makes Katie play one of her songs on one of the city's streets. Once home, they go swimming out in the lake, and dry off with a fire on the beach. Charlie mentions watching the sunrise, and Katie freaks out, running home in fear. Charlie picks her up and quickly drives her there, but she does not make it in time, and is exposed to the sunlight for a couple of seconds. Katie runs inside, while Morgan and Jack come home soon after. Charlie still is standing confused at the front door, and Morgan explains that Katie has xeroderma pigmentosum. Once the doctors run some tests, Katie's doctor comes to the conclusion that Katie's brain is contracting, and it's only a matter of time before she dies.

Katie begins to experience twitches in her finger, which prevents her from playing the guitar. She also ignores Charlie's messages as she does not want to hurt him. Jack eventually convinces Katie to speak to Charlie, who still wants to be with Katie, and does not care about the medical condition. Katie goes to Charlie's swim meeting with the Berkeley coach, and they hang out at the house with Morgan and Jack. Charlie takes Katie out one night, and surprises her by booking a recording session, where she sings a song she wrote for him. Soon after, while hanging out at her house, Charlie mentions that he has to visit the boat for the last time, which he has been hired to take care of the whole summer. Katie, fearing that she is going to die, eventually remembers the time Charlie told her that he wished they could sail together, and convinces Jack to let her go with Charlie, despite it being the day. Katie sails with Charlie, feels the sunlight, and spend her final moments with him, passing away soon after. Charlie feels sad that it is because of his mistake that she died; however, Jack convinces him that she had to die and had only this much time left that she freely lived. Finally Charlie enjoys Katie's songs on the beach thinking about the beautiful and lovely memories that they made together.

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FAQs
  1. What is the release date of 'Midnight Sun'?
    Release date of Patrick Schwarzenegger and Nicholas Coombe starrer 'Midnight Sun' is 2018-04-06.
  2. Who are the actors in 'Midnight Sun'?
    'Midnight Sun' star cast includes Patrick Schwarzenegger, Nicholas Coombe, Bella Thorne and Rob Riggle.
  3. Who is the director of 'Midnight Sun'?
    'Midnight Sun' is directed by Scott Speer.
  4. What is Genre of 'Midnight Sun'?
    'Midnight Sun' belongs to 'Drama, Romance' genre.
  5. In Which Languages is 'Midnight Sun' releasing?
    'Midnight Sun' is releasing in English.