"The Sun Is Also A Star"---movie review

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"The Sun Is Also A Star" has everything going for it so why does it just miss being an exciting love story? The leads, Yara Shahidi and Charles Melton, are an attractive couple who meet 'cute'--he saves her from being run over--and the premise is an interesting one. He believes in love, she doesn't and, via the screenplay, he has 24 hours to prove it to her. DUH! Guess what happens? His parents are immigrants from South Korea who own a successful black hair care product store in Harlem and she has been living in New York for 9 years with her Jamaican parents who are about to be deported. A lot of successful love stories have been filmed in New York City and "The Sun Is Also A Star" takes advantage of Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs with aerial shots, walks through the city parks and streets and even a tram ride from Manhattan to Roosevelt Island and many glorious shots of the Statue of Liberty. The soundtrack, except for a karaoke scene, adds a lot but.... There isn't a reason this movie shouldn't involve the audience's emotions but it doesn't. Maybe if more had been looked into regarding the immigrant aspect it would have rounded out the story of the lovers more. John Leguizamo should have been brought more into the story because the scenes with him would have given more meaning to the fact versus fate argument that motivates the love story. (Besides they never explain the accident he was in which was distracting!) "The Sun Is Also A Star" has a lot going for it but just not enough, none of the 'magic' that makes 'happily ever after". PS Don't leave when the screen goes dark or you will the ending. Synopsis Natasha is a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. She is not the type of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when her family is twelve hours away from being deported. Falling in love with him will not be her story. Daniel has always been the good son, the good student, living up to his parents' high expectations. Never a poet. Or a dreamer. But when he sees her, he forgets all that. Something about Natasha makes him think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store - for both of them. Every moment has brought them to this single moment. A million futures lie before them. Which one will come true? Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3On0BXzGnuI