The Last Sunrise Is One of those movies where pretty visuals could have just carried it alone with nothing underneath of them, but also it had a story that went great with the visuals, which is why I had the experience that I wanted from it and not just a pretty-looking film with nothing underneath.
The story follows the journey of a Ry, a college student who suffers from a chronic illness, but travels to Mallorca with her mother, Isolde, who's a little too clingy for her own good, the kind of mother who's afraid of losing her daughter, while they are there, Ry finds herself falling for this local guy Julián who somehow manages to get her outside of her shell and make her realize what it feels like to live in the moment and forget to race for the worst, and all the romance of course, is undercut by a whole host of family secrets that are being revealed along the way, and things start to fall into place, just at the moment they begin to feel good for once.
I have to say the thing that got me the most and that's what I said at the beginning, the display and the colour in this movie, Mallorca as a setting , was beautiful enough to be on its own but there were so many sunset scenes in particular, and there were a lot in this film, that felt deliberate, like they were going somewhere and they were commenting on what Ry was feeling at that moment in the story.
The love-interest thing that takes a long time to build up to an emotional climax, the family secret, the health issues, the predictable story beats, a lot of people who have seen this movie are looking at that and saying , “Yeah, it's a predictable story, .” In this movie, color is not a fad, it's a character, it's a prologue, it is an entire character speaking to you before you even hear its voice.
The story itself still worked for me too though, not just the visuals, When Ry decides to live her life because she may have only this one shot at it, that was the theme I felt on film, no matter how many versions there were before, when you just see someone struggle between protecting their child and letting them really live their life, that's always a genuine fear, whether the movie is more action-packed, more dramatic, or not.
Julián's chemistry with Ry was enough to make the romance feel like something believable as well, albeit sometimes the romance movie tropes they used were familiar; but the bottom line is that the chemistry and emotions that underpinned the romance was solid enough to hold me, even if it was using some kind of scenes that I had seen before.
Overall, yes, I liked this one, the visuals were great, really made it feel like it was a place worth falling in love in, and the story, despite being a predictable one – still did something to my heart where it needed to be.
Rating: 95/100
