“The Sun Is Also a Star” is a beautiful looking film. The TV stars Yara Shahidi of “grown-ish” and Charles Melton of “Riverdale” are beautiful. New York City is beautiful. Even the MTA is (kind of) beautiful.
Director Ry Russo-Young’s film is shot by cinematographer Autumn Durald with such precision it’s impossible not to get a little swoony over the fact that the filmmaker clearly did not phone it in for this adaptation of a popular young adult book.
That makes it all the more frustrating, then, that the driving engine behind the film — a whirlwind 24-hour romance — is contrived, underwhelming and perhaps worst of all, unconvincing.