MIDNIGHT SUN

MIDNIGHT SUN

Xeroderma pigmentosum is a rare condition in which the person is highly reactive to even the smallest amount of sunlight. Survival past the age of 20 occurs in less than forty percent of all people afflicted.

Director Scott Speer's ("Step Up Revolution") latest film revolves around a young lady named Katie (Bella Thorne) who has the affliction and consequently spends her waking hours at night while sleeping during daylight hours. Her mother died long ago and she is underthe watchful, but caring eye of her father... who also home schools her.

She has one friend who knows about the affliction, Morgan (Quinn Shephard), and comes over to hang out with Katie. Otherwise, Katie spends her mornings peering out the bedroom window pining over a boy named Charlie (Patrick Schwarzenegger) who has become the big man on campus at the local high school. He doesn't know she exists.

That all changes when he hears her playing the guitar at the local train station one night. He meets her briefly, but she runs home in a panic accidentally leaving her music journal behind - which Charlie finds.

They finally do hook up and Charlie, despite ovations from the school hottie (Zoe Carmichael), falls in love with Katie and the start dating - though her dad (portrayed by Rob Riggle) is reluctant to let her do so.

Things progress well though Katie has failed to tell Charlie about her condition and he never asks. In fact he doesn't ask a lot of questions about her behavior or why she can only come out at night. Then, of course there is an oops and things go bad in a hurry.

As I said earlier, the prognosis for people with XP is fatal. So this is supposed to be a tearjerker. In fact Speer works very hard to make this a tearjerker. It similar to the film "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" (2015) but it is based on the Japanese film of the same name by Taiyo no uta (2006). This vresion however feels like Speer is begging for sorrow though you never really connect with Katie nor Charlie.

Riggle comes across very well as Katie's doting dad, but the other performances are generic with no real chemistry between the characters.

"Midnight Sun" is a below average film about the girl down the street with the fatal disease who suddenly finds love. We've been there and done that already and Scott Speer's film brings nothing new to the table save for awareness of a rare disease. -- GRADE D -- GEOFF BURTON

GEOFF BURTON