The son also rises
Patrick Schwarzenegger makes his romantic lead debut in saccharine tale
The main character of Midnight Sun is Katie Price (played by Bella Thorne). Katie is a 17-yearold girl who stays awake at night and sleeps all day. She’s homeschooled by her father Jack (Rob Riggle) and she takes three hours to get ready — but that’s not her idea.
No, she relies on the instruction of her best friend Morgan (Quinn Shephard) to live like a normal adolescent. Katie leads a sheltered existence, but it’s not merely at the whim of an overprotective father. It’s what happens when you grow up with a debilitating disease called xeroderma pigmentosum, which leaves her fatally sensitive to sunlight. Taking on the archetypal role in a romantic comedy is a little bit different for Thorne, who is probably best known for playing mean girls in The Duff, The Babysitter and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. While Midnight Sun takes a while to distinguish Katie from every other romantic teen protagonist — her over-the-top awkwardness while meeting Charlie (Patrick Schwarzenegger) is as trope-y as it gets — Thorne here makes
the most of the opportunity to extend her range. Her chemistry with Shephard is palpable, and she exhibits a willingness to play along with a script that at times could generously be best described as lacking.
But Thorne’s competent lead performance can’t distract its audience from Midnight Sun’s other faults. The movie somehow takes the tension out of a life-threatening disease. No one wants to see unnecessary conflict, but this film lacks any sort of tension at all. The movie hints at Jack the father possibly being more controlling than he seems, but never actually goes down that path. Meanwhile, a potential romantic rival for Charlie leaves the story as quickly as she appears.
Even the central relationship seems unrealistic. Katie suffers from a potentially fatal genetic disorder, while Charlie has a bad shoulder that’s getting in the way of a swim scholarship. Their plights are vastly different, and so it’s up to Charlie to be full of false positivity.
Sure, Schwarzenegger possesses an innate charm, but the more his character opens his mouth to unleash a series of platitudes, the more I doubt the veracity of his existence.
It seems as though director Scott Speer felt he needed as many minor details to give an otherwise saccharine story some bite.
Speer’s previous work includes an entry in the Step Up franchise. That series is famous for great dancing and terrible romantic subplots. This probably made some powers that be assume another teen romantic film was right in his wheelhouse.
Unfortunately, Speer didn’t have great choreography to rely on in this one.
After all, there are only so many rapid jump cuts you can make during an otherwise regular house party.