The ailing teen romance genre is a rite of passage for many young stars. Mandy Moore had “A Walk to Remember”; Shailene Woodley had “The Fault in Our Stars,” and never forget the patient zero of these movies: the ’70s cancer tearjerker “Love Story.”
These tales of doomed, innocent romance are so wildly popular, drawing alternating swoons and tears from young audiences, that the genre persists, whether it’s sick teens from space (“The Space Between Us”) or sick teens in bubbles (“Everything, Everything”). Now, wild child/former Disney star Bella Thorne gets in on the action with “Midnight Sun,” across from Patrick Schwarzenegger (son of Arnie).
Directed by Scott Speer and written by Kenji Bando and Eric Kirsten, “Midnight Sun” is the story of an 18-year old girl, Katie, afflicted with xeroderma pigmentosum, or XP. It means she’s hypersensitive to the sun, and has therefore been shut up inside for all of her young life, shielded by tinted windows, lest she instantly break out in skin cancer or her brain “contract.” Life with XP was also depicted by Brad Pitt in a 1988 film, “The Dark Side of the Sun,” which shares some significant story overlaps with “Midnight Sun” (mostly, sun exposure for love).
Katie mostly lives a quiet life, with only her dad (Rob Riggle) and friend Morgan (Quinn Shepherd) for company, and sometimes she ventures at night out to play guitar and busk at the train station. She pines after Charlie (Schwarzenegger), who passes by her house every day, and is shocked when he approaches her at the station one night.