*deep inhale*

Okay.

So a while ago (opening weekend, actually, so that tells you how long this has been…#oops) I took myself and the parents to the movies to see The Sun is Also a Star.

Lemme just get it out of the way right now that my mom and I read the book first and LOVED IT so we were incredibly excited for the movie.

…

We’ll get to that.

I mean, um…it’s…it’s certainly a movie. Yep.

THE PLOT

We start the film with Natasha (Yara Shahidi), a high school student whose family is being deported the next day. She is determined for that to not happen, so she’s on a quest for whatever appointments and lawyers will delay the deportation. Her first stop is a big failure before she begs the guy she meets with, and he gives her the number of a lawyer who I guess is an expert at these things. So Natasha has a new mission now! She manages to set an appointment during the guy’s lunch.

Then, we catch up with Daniel (Charles Melton), also a high school student who is off to go interview for a recommendation for…one of the Big Colleges. Daniel’s mom is really concerned about it, but Daniel’s older brother and Resident Worst Human Being Ever Charles (Jake Choi) makes lots of snide comments about it. Daniel meets up with his Best Friend With No Name who is Never Seen Again (Camrus Johnson? I think? I have no idea) and they have this weird hobby of lounging up in the walls of Grand Central Station to people-watch or something, I guess it’s supposed to be whimsical and relatable.

Anyway, Daniel notices Natasha amongst the crowd because she’s looking up at the ceiling. Daniel like, freaks out because “no one ever looks up!!” And then Natasha turns around and her jacket says “deus ex machina” which is the title of the poem he’d written that morning, so he freaks out times twelve and goes chasing after her.

He loses her, of course, and gets on the train to head to his interview. BUT SURPRISE NATASHA IS ALSO ON THE SAME TRAIN!! He follows her and ends up stopping her from walking out into the street as a car screams past. They chat (as a thank-you for saving Natasha’s life, I guess) and it’s brought to light that Natasha doesn’t believe in love and Daniel is the Most Romantic Sucker Ever.

The rest of the movie is basically Daniel on a mission to make Natasha fall in love with him in one day while she continues to try not to get deported. Just your average modern American love story, am I right.

THE REVIEW

Ugggggghhhhhhhh….

Okay, look. I know we all like to make fun of people who go see movies and then all they can say afterwards is “THE BOOK WAS BETTER!!”

But please trust me when I say that 100% definitively…the book was better.

While the cute teen romance is certainly the center of the book’s story, it’s not the only thing the book is about. See, while the book certainly follows Natasha and Daniel and all their romantic exploits, it also gives little side-chapters to various side-characters and this is a cool mechanic for a variety of reasons that I will get into later.

The book created this beautiful narrative about how interconnected all us humans really are by taking time to focus on characters we normally don’t give a second thought to when reading and/or watching something. The closest the movie comes to this is with some (albeit beautifully shot) scenes of New York spliced in between the scenes with Daniel and Natasha. It’s a cool concept, really…but it could have been so much more.

Honestly, that’s how I felt about the entire movie. It’s a cool concept. It’s decent. It’s okay. BUT IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH MORE.

Lemme say here that if you’ve never read the book, it’s possible you’ll like the movie. My dad liked it, and I actually felt like my mom and I had a hard time convincing him why the book was actually better (or it’s just that my dad likes being contrary to everything). Regardless of specifics, it’s still a cool story filled with love and hope and whatever.

But…

The story the book presents isn’t just cool and filled with love and hope. It’s bursting at the seams with it. It takes your expectations and slams them into the ground. It reminds you that not all humans are perfect, that sometimes things still don’t work out and we may never know the reason why, that what seems like an ending is sometimes just the beginning, that sometimes the most seemingly insignificant action can change absolutely everything for the better.

While the movie is a nice, heartfelt escape for a couple hours, the book is a complete emotional journey all on its own. I kept wanting to enjoy the movie for what it was, but I couldn’t not compare it to the incredible source material. I mean they ended up changing so much, I don’t get why they didn’t just make a completely new story. They’d already taken out the heart and soul of the source material, so…I dunno, man. Hollywood, I guess.

So all that being said, let’s dive into exactly what made the movie so lackluster compared to the book, and the beautiful movie we could have had.

Spoiler warning now in effect!! And by that I mean, please read the book because it’s phenomenal, then read my review to learn why you absolutely should not see the movie.

THE MUSIC

It’s cute.

I mean, it’s the soundtrack to a cheesy teen love story to a T.

(There might be more to the soundtrack, I admittedly for once wasn’t really paying attention to the music because I was too distracted watching one of my favorite books absolutely be torn to shreds on the big screen. Anyway.)

HOWEVER…

There’s a scene where Daniel takes Natasha to norebang, (Korean karaoke). It’s a crucial scene in both versions of the story because it’s the scene where the barriers finally break and Natasha finally admits she has Feelings, and the two kiss for the first time. Since it’s karaoke, music is kind of a crucial element!

In the movie, the song Daniel sings is “Crimson and Clover” which is aight, and while it starts out with him singing, it slowly melds into the actual recorded version of the song because by that point we’ve entered Montage Land. The montage is basically Natasha and Daniel’s entire romantic future. It’s sweet and beautifully shot, and probably serves to make up for the lack of montage that was supposed to occur when Natasha and Daniel met (like what happens in the book). Near the end of the song, the makeout session happens, Natasha gets a reminder about her appointment and promptly leaves, so on and so forth.

In the book, the song Daniel sings is “Take a Chance on Me” which is very on the nose and that’s the entire point. While Daniel croons to Natasha in both scenarios, there’s something in the book that is sadly missing from the film–Natasha’s singing.

Natasha is a huge music fan in the book. Specifically, she’s very into Nirvana and Soundgarden. The song she chooses to sing in the norebang is “Fell on Black Days,” and there is truly nothing more endearing than reading Daniel’s POV about how Natasha is an awful, awful singer–but she gives it her all because she loves the song.

I get that we’re against making girls in movies look/act like anything other than completely desirable because that’s what sells I guess, but COME ON. It’s not Daniel’s crooning that leads to the makeout session in the norebang–it’s Natasha’s awful singing filled with pure bliss that leads to a connection that leads to the makeout session in the norebang.

There’s also an entire scene in a record store that got cut for the movie. There’s a very crucial plot point with Natasha’s phone case, a Nirvana album cover on the case, that got cut for the movie.

The music used for the film is fine, it really is, but it ignores everything that made music so important in the story in the first place. Natasha may be cynical and a lover of science, but what captivates Daniel initially is her passionate connection to music. While Natasha still has big bulky headphones that get broken when Daniel saves her life, the movie never touches on her deep connection to music, which means we never get introduced to Irene’s connection to the same music, so on and so forth.

“But wait, who’s Irene?” I hear you asking, “there wasn’t anyone in the movie named Irene!”

Precisely.

THE CHARACTERS

Like I mentioned earlier, the book focuses on other characters and their stories just as it follows Natasha and Daniel. If you saw the film, the narrated slideshow sections that discuss the history of Korean-owned black hair care stores and Natasha’s parents’ romance is a brief taste of what the book offers in that sense. I kept thinking that they could easily have done the short chapters that focus on extra characters in the same way, but alas, they did not.

But let’s start out just by talking about the characters the movie does give us.

Natasha Kingsley is preeeetty close to her book counterpart. She’s a no-nonsense girl who loves science and space and has truly grown up in America, so it makes perfect sense why she doesn’t want to leave. We get a sense she has a strained relationship with her parents (though not nearly as much as in the book) but overall, despite claiming she doesn’t believe in love, her life is filled with it. There are other characters in the book that help to develop her character but are absent in the movie. Her best friend in the world is gone, although we get short snippets of scenes where Natasha is with a small group of friends. Her terrible ex-boyfriend is gone, which is unfortunate because he has a fun scene in the record store that doesn’t exist in the movie, and he has an important conversation with Natasha about their relationship. Overall Natasha is basically the person she is in the book (although she’s even more resistant to Daniel in the book) and that at least was fun to see come to screen. It’s unfortunate that the people and relationships that help define her were so toned down, but more on that later.

Daniel Jae Wong Bae is an interesting dude. He, too, is relatively close to his book counterpart, although I would offer that Movie Daniel is a lot more suave and put together than Book Daniel. Book Daniel is a bit of a dork who overthinks everything, and he’s anything but confident about how things will go with Natasha (anything he says about “I’ll make you fall in love with me” is a front in the book for a true disaster child who likes a pretty girl and wants to keep being with her. This element is not really present in the movie). I don’t know why Daniel’s friend character in the movie is even a thing since he…truly serves no purpose, but whatever. The relationship that really defines Daniel is his relationship with his brother Charles, and this is another thing the movie is sorely lacking.

Even the chapters in the book that talk about Charles confirm that he is basically the Worst Human Being Ever. Book Charles is snarky and merciless and while you can tell it probably stems from some deeper issues, he is largely completely irredeemable because he chooses to be. Movie Charles is a bit of an asshole, sure, but he has some form of redemption in the movie because he wants it–normally I’d be all over this, but it’s weird here because I know what Book Charles is like. It’s strange to see a character who actively chooses to be terrible in the book get turned into someone who suddenly chooses to be and do better. For example, the only reason Book Charles gives Natasha Daniel’s number is because, like Natasha points out, Daniel’s family will not be happy about him dating a black girl. Finally, the heat will get taken off of Charles and his parents will be disappointed in Daniel for once. The narrator points out that this is the last decent thing Charles ever does for his brother. It’s dynamic. It’s fascinating. It’s a little malicious. Movie Charles, on the other hand, gives Natasha Daniel’s number because she “really likes him, right?” And it’s presented as some kind and decent act because he loves his brother. Book Charles may have once loved his brother–he doesn’t any more, and that’s very real. We want to believe in the perfect, accepting family no matter what…but that’s not real.

“But it’s a fictitious story–” YES I KNOW.

Jeremy Martinez (changed from Jeremy Fitzgerald in the book) is the lawyer who can supposedly fix Natasha’s whole situation…except that he can’t. The story we get in the movie is that Jeremy Martinez was biking to work on the Day Everything Went Down when he was hit by a car. His injuries weren’t serious, and he was able to meet Natasha and conduct Daniel’s interview, but there’s something else–he met his future wife in the hospital that day. It’s a sweet story, for sure, and it’s the movie’s way of trying to make up for ruining everything else, I guess. More on him and his story later.

Daniel and Natasha’s families are present, and they show up occasionally for cringe purposes or to make us sad, but they’re not developed nearly to the extent they are in the book. But again…more on that later.

And then we have Daniel’s weird best friend who exists for exactly one (1) scene before vanishing into…somewhere.

The movie doesn’t give us Irene. Or Hannah. Or Joe. The movie cuts out exactly what made the book not “just another” teen romance story–the side characters and how they connect to our two leads.

THE SIDE CHARACTERS

Let’s start with our most important side character–Irene the security guard. We are introduced to Irene fairly early on, she’s the security guard Natasha always runs into when she’s going to a meeting about immigration. Natasha thinks Irene is weird because Irene always touches everyone’s stuff when they go through the security scanners. In fact, on the Morning When Everything Happened, Natasha is late for her appointment because Irene was inspecting her phone case (the Nirvana one that didn’t matter in the movie). This is important, because Natasha being late for her initial appointment is what led her to meeting Jeremy Fitzgerald/Martinez.

In Irene’s separate chapter, we learn that Irene purposely touches people’s stuff in the security line so they’re forced to look at her and interact with her because Irene is dangerously and cripplingly lonely. So much so that when she notices Natasha’s phone case, she looks up Nirvana and Kurt Cobain and it is his story that convinces her to end her own life the following day.

Later in the story, after Natasha has accepted her feelings for Daniel and it looks like she might be able to stay after all, she calls the office where Irene works and asks them to thank Irene for her; because without Irene making her late, none of the following day would have even happened.

We don’t meet Irene again until the end of the book, but we learn that Irene got the message and the thank you, and because of that, decided not to end her own life. She switched careers and became a flight attendant, and she is extremely happy.

…we’ll get back to her.

Our next important side-character is Hannah Winter, the secretary for Jeremy Fitzgerald/Martinez. When we first meet her, she seems a little…eccentric. Natasha immediately assumes that Hannah is in love with her boss, that she’s devastated about the accident with the car. Daniel meets her later and finds a kindred spirit who believes in the magic of love.

In Hannah’s separate chapter, we learn that she is indeed a hopeless romantic who is very much in love with her boss. She has gone her whole life feeling like the side-character, the best friend rather than the leading lady. She believes in fairy tales, and with Jeremy, she feels like finally she found her own.

This segues nicely into Jeremy Fitzgerald. He’s super nice and well-meaning, and here’s what we learn about him: he is also in love with Hannah Winter, but he is married with kids. The Day Everything Happens, he comes back to the office from the hospital and takes Hannah to a hotel and spend the afternoon with her there.

He decides he has to end the affair with Hannah.

Hannah leaves.

Through Daniel, Jeremy is encouraged to maybe not give up on love and maybe, just maybe, go after Hannah.

We learn that Jeremy leaves his wife and his kids. His wife marries again, and divorces again. His kids grow up not believing in love and they, too, marry…and divorce. Multiple times. Hannah and Jeremy get married and have kids of their own. Hannah and Jeremy’s kids believe in love and grow up to have happy, healthy marriages of their own.

In the book, Jeremy is only unable to postpone Natasha’s deportation because he spent the afternoon with Hannah. It was a simple phone call he didn’t make because he was having an affair. Natasha and Daniel never learn this. But we do.

In the movie, Jeremy is just simply unable to postpone it, but we never learn why. Hannah Winter is present, but she’s nothing more than a secretary. There is no torrid, secret affair that results in broken families as well as happy and healthy ones.

Another side character is the driver of the car that almost hits Natasha and, in the movie at least (it’s never confirmed in the book), does hit Jeremy. The driver is frazzled and disoriented because he lost his teenage daughter to a drunk driver.

The waitress from the Korean restaurant who forces Natasha to use chopsticks is bitter because her son got married and her husband wouldn’t let them go to the wedding. Her son didn’t marry a Korean girl.

The security guard who lets Natasha and Daniel on the roof does so because he remembers his wife and how they would have done the same thing. His wife who always told him to quit smoking, just like Natasha did.

The taxi driver who takes Natasha and Daniel to the airport doesn’t comment or talk to them because he knows what damage looks like.

Everyone is important.

Everyone has a story.

Everyone behaves the way they do because of something else.

No one is alone in anything.

This lovely element is missing from the movie in every way imaginable.

THE FAMILY STORIES

While this is lightly touched on, it’s much more detailed in the book.

In the book, we get a taste of just how important it is to Daniel’s parents for him to go to a good school and be well-off. Daniel’s dad lived in absolute poverty, and if it’s possible for his son to avoid that, he wants that desperately. To the point where if Daniel decides to go somewhere else and do something else with his life, he will be cut off.

In the book, we get a really intense look at how broken Natasha’s family is and why. In the movie, Natasha’s family is being deported because there was a random raid at the kitchen where Natasha’s dad works. It’s unfortunate and unfair, but it’s not necessarily tragic in the sense that it is in the book.

In the book, Samuel Kingsley wants to be an actor. He goes to America first to work on pursuing this dream. At first, it seems like things are going well. But no one will cast him. Finally, Natasha’s mom moves to America with Natasha so they can all be together. Samuel keeps auditioning, and he keeps getting rejected. At some point, Patricia Kingsley goes out to get multiple jobs just to keep the family afloat in their one-bedroom apartment. She’s bitter and disillusioned, so that when Samuel does finally get cast in something, she refuses to go.

The night of the play, Natasha and her little brother Peter go. They go home alone because Samuel wants to stay and celebrate with the other actors. He’s drunk when he tries to drive home. He gets pulled over for a DUI and ends up telling the officer that he and his family are undocumented.

In the book, they are getting deported pretty much solely because of Samuel Kingsley. Because of this, Natasha has an extremely complicated relationship with her father. She has a heartfelt confrontation with him near the end of the book when she brings Daniel home before they have to leave. It develops and rounds out not only Natasha’s character, but her father’s as well.

I kind of get why the movie changed this element. To some extent, it becomes “too many stories to tell” and we don’t want to pull away from Natasha and Daniel or something. Plus, having his deportation be completely not his fault does highlight how ridiculous immigration stuff is in America.

But here’s the thing with that!

When you read the book, the family stories and the side stories never detract from the main love story–they only add to it. By taking all that away, you’re hollowing out Natasha and Daniel’s characters, and the story suffers greatly for it.

Not as much as it does when we get to the ending, however…

THE ENDING

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh OKAY.

In the book and the movie, Natasha and her family get deported. The book makes it clear that Natasha and Daniel tried to stay in contact at first, but they just naturally grew apart. The movie sort of shows this to some extent.

The movie then picks up 5 years later, in the same coffee shop where Natasha and Daniel first met. Natasha is meeting our buddy Jeremy Martinez/Fitzgerald, and she asks if he by any chance remembers Daniel and might know anything about him. She explains that she’s back in the U.S. on a student visa, and she leaves for San Francisco (I think) in the morning and she’d hoped to find him before she left. Jeremy, being incredibly unhelpful, is all “nah bro, but I do remember that day because that’s when I met my wife! She was the nurse who attended me when I got hit by that car!” And Natasha’s all “cool I guess, not what I asked but whatever.”

She stands up to leave, and the camera moves to show that none other than Daniel himself is walking next to her, but neither of them recognize each other. Just as Natasha goes to open the door to leave, Daniel takes over the open mic and says “this is a poem about the sun.” Natasha slowly turns, they make eye contact, they reconnect, nobody in the coffee shop even reacts because that’s definitely realistic, end of movie.

Now, the BOOK.

The actual end of the book is just that Natasha and Daniel grew up and grew apart. That’s it.

The real ending comes with the Epilogue.

Remember Irene?

The epilogue is another of Irene’s POV chapters. See, after she got the call about Natasha thanking her, Irene decided not to end her life. Instead, she got the help she needed, quit her job, and got a new job as a flight attendant. She loves her new job. For the first time, we hear about Irene being truly happy and not lonely anymore.

We catch up with her on one particular flight, where she’s walking down the aisles doing final checks and she recognizes Natasha in one of the seats. Now, in the book, this is 10 years later. Irene asks Natasha if, by any chance, she recognizes her. She wants to thank Natasha for how she changed her life. At first, Natasha seems a little wary, but she does recognize her.

At that moment, someone else on the plane says “Natasha?”

Irene describes how Natasha sees, a few rows ahead of her and across the aisle, a Korean boy. Irene describes Natasha smiling as she says “Daniel.”

That’s the end.

I feel like while both the book and the movie keep the general idea of impossible reunion years later against all odds, the book’s take is–you guessed it!–better. By putting us in Irene’s POV for the final reunion, we take an outsider’s perspective, which is what we’ve truly been all along. We no longer have access to Natasha and Daniel’s thoughts. We are another passenger on the plane, seeing this reunion that shouldn’t have happened. Somehow the reunion feels all the more impossible when we’re viewing it like Irene is–someone who may not have the full story behind these two, but can tell that somehow, what’s happening is amazing.

It’s a realistically hopeful take on a love that the world says should not work out.

Yet it does.

The movie’s ending is okay–really it is. Daniel reading a poem about the sun being the thing that causes Natasha to turn around is cute. The point that they reunite is still evident.

But there’s something beautifully poetic about Natasha and Daniel only reuniting because Irene says Natasha’s name on the plane. Maybe they would have run into each other at the airport…maybe not. But because Natasha made one phone call to thank a security guard because she decided without that security guard, she never would have met Daniel…because of that one phone call…that security guard turned flight attendant is what allows them to meet again 10 years later.

The book ends before we discover if they rekindled anything between them. We don’t know what their circumstances are or where they’re headed or why. But we do know that miraculously, they were given a second chance together. Maybe their tragic parting was all so their reunion could be that much sweeter–maybe they can be together now where they couldn’t years before. The truth is we don’t know for sure. And I actually like that more. It’s up to the reader to interpret what exactly is the end of Natasha and Daniel’s story. If there even is one. Maybe it’s still playing out, in all of us, every time we are kind to someone else when it seems insignificant.

You never know where that act of kindness might lead, or why.

But it’s kind of fun to think about.

THE SUMMATION

Look–like I said before, I clearly have a bias here. I read the book and fell in love. I was transported to some version of our universe where despite everything, love wins. I fell in love with every character we met and I loved knowing every little piece of their story I was given. I loved getting to see how everything connected by the end, despite everything.

The movie is, solely and entirely, a love story. It’s not a bad love story. It still focuses on immigration issues and family pressures and the injustice of it all. But it never strays too far from its focus: the love between Natasha and Daniel.

It’s why their reunion at the end of the movie, though very watered-down from the book, works. Because that reunion is perfect for what it is: a love story.

I would argue that while the movie tells a love story, the book tells a story about love–all different kinds. That’s why I think it’s so powerful. That’s why I think if you’re looking for some beautiful love story, you should really read the book.

Really.

I read it in a day. Partly because I had a deadline since we’d already bought tickets for the movie, but really though. It’s a quick powerful read that will make you feel all sorts of things. In a good way. I mean I definitely cried. A lot.

But like…wouldn’t you rather deal with a story that made you cry and feel things because you loved the characters, rather than tried to make you cry with all its superficial symbolism and angst and poorly-dealt-with female robot characters?

(*cough*ALITABATTLEANGEL*cough*)

Anyway.

SHOULD YOU TAKE YOURSELF TO SEE THIS MOVIE?

So if it wasn’t abundantly clear by now–no.

I mean…ugh. Look, if you’re not a book person, that’s…fine…I guess, but please please please, if the trailer for the movie looked intriguing, read the book. It tells Natasha and Daniel’s story so much better than the movie does.

However, if that’s not your thing, which I don’t personally get but whatever I don’t know you, I don’t know your life, you might like the movie. My dad didn’t read the book and he thought the movie was great (despite my mom and I trying to convince him otherwise by constantly going off with “AND ANOTHER THING…”).

The movie tells a good story. It’s not a bad movie by any means.

But it could have been so much more.

Which is why I give The Sun is Also a Star…

2/5 BITTER SUNS!!!

Because the sun may also be a star, but it deserves a better movie than this.

TRAILERS TO WATCH OUT FOR

The only new friend we have to talk about is My Spy which I just figured out stars the guy who plays Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy. Hopefully I like My Spy more than Guardians (OOOOoooooooOooooOOOOH SHE DOESN’T LIKE GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY OOOooooOOooOOOH yeah yeah shut up). Best part of the trailer is when the girl knocks the fish bowl over to cause a distraction and he just “*GASP* LITTLE BLUE!!!!” Because same.

That about does it for this review!! The movie is…fine.

But please, please do yourself a favor and READ THE BOOK.