Midnight Sun (dir. Scott Speer)

You can take your pick from the long list of problems with Scott Speer's emotionally manipulating young-adult romance, to which is the most egregious. It could quite easily be it's two leads: Bella Thorne and Patrick Schwarznegger who exude awkwardness and a lack of chemistry rarely seen, or perhaps it's the screamingly bad dialogue which hits every well-worn cliched known to existence. Even it's depiction of a young-woman suffering from an incredibly rare skin disease, which is more reminiscent of a common cold. Suffice to say there are more things wrong in this plodding teen romance - which is a remake of a far superior Japanese film of the same name -that can be attested too.

Let me be absolutely clear: I have been regularly enamored with the recent renaissance of young-adult teen romance films of late - many of them re-imaginings of previous incarnations - and on some occasions profoundly moved. Some efforts, such as Josh Boone's The Fault in Our Stars are admittedly as manipulating yet are orchestrated with a dynamic flair, and anchored with superlative turns from Shailenne Woodley and Miles Teller, respectively. And there have also been outings with equally peculiar premises', in the more recently reviewed "Every Day" (the love interest wakes up every day as somebody completely different) therefore it's possible to find nuance and pathos within a story that is both saccharine and indeed implausible. But alas, director Scott Speer - who directed many a music video and some of the later "Step Up" sequels - is unable to reach the engaging resonance needed to at least make the mawkish twaddle on screen dramatically engaging, and most importantly for a film about a dying girl - it's unlikely to get you to shed a tear.

Let's begin with the aforementioned premise: 17-year old teen Katie Price (Bella Thorne) has a dark secret which only her widowed father, Jack (Rob Riggle) and best friend Morgan (Quinn Shephard) know about: she suffers from an incredible rare disease called Xeroderma pigmentosum (or XP as they call it) - which bars her from going into direct sunlight for fear of all manor of neurological problems and skin cancers. But if there's one thing that won't stop a teenager from certain death, it's the possibility of romance; so enter neighborly crush Charlie (Schwarznegger) - with whom she has been eagerly spying on during his skateboard-riding ventures to his local school. A chance encounter between the two, during one of Katie's occasional busking outings at the local train station, ignites a dalliance which is all predicated on him not knowing about her ailments.

If this doesn't wet your beak, wait until the script asks our leading pair to wallow around Seattle's urban beach scene (do they have them?) during their honeymoon period. Our music-video director and screenwriter Erik Kristen flicker between the two love-birds frolicking about town, occasionally reciting greeting-card mawkishness to each other, before the occasional guitar-playing interlude, with Katie every so often checking her watch as no to break curfew. No doubt Speer was aiming to engage and perhaps even get us reaching for the tissues in these romantic exchanges, yet the overarching self-importance with which he handles the most basic sections of dialogue are so unremarkable, if you're caught crying it's not because of well-judged catharsis.

Bella Thorne is a perfectly fine young actress, yet if you were to do some research, you're unlikely to find anyone suffering from her disease in the real world (apparently the disease is much more common in Japan, hence the original) which looks that much like a Disney-princess. Her romantic counterpart however - son of former Governor of California and the nation's favorite Terminator, Arnold - is wholly uncharismatic and pits his performance between two facial expressions: a gurning smirk and wooden confusion. Daily trips to the doctors for the perennial worrier Dad, Jack (Rob Riggle) mix up the drama, with her physician on-screen long enough to add in the occasional bit of plot exposition, "Most people don't make it to 20, you know" - she recounts at one point - no guesses if that will be relevant later on.

The trouble isn't just that it takes dramatic licenses with it's central disease, but that it makes a story about a homeschooled teen with a death sentence and the affable high-school swim star so ploddingly dull, within a genre that has managed to subvert the lunacy of it's plot so rapidly of late. Additionally, it's failure to achieve an emotional undercurrent within the badly written narrative is much too risible - despite having the strength of it's convictions in the final moments of the drama - here's a teen romance which needed less portent on it's visual aesthetic and more on it's character development.

Rating 1/5.