The Last Sunrise Movie Review and Ratings
Cast: Maia Reficco, Fernando Lindez, Eva Longoria
Director: Carlson Young
Streaming Platform: Prime Video
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 2.5/5 (two and a half stars)
The Last Sunrise, a romantic film based on the novel of the same name by Anna Todd, the author of the After saga, will be streaming on Prime Video from August 26th. The film is written by Anna Klassen and directed by Carlson Young (Upgraded), stars Maia Reficco (the Argentine-American actress seen in Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, Leo Gassmann’s former girlfriend), Fernando Lindez (Elite, Tell Me Sottovoce), and Eva Longoria, who needs no introduction. The story, as you can admire in the trailer we report at the bottom of the review, takes place in Mallorca, or Mallorca, whatever you want to write, but the Spanish setting is not misleading: Mercedes Ron, the other star of romantic dramas of recent years (Culpables and Dimmelo sottovoce), has nothing to do with this film.
Directed by Carlson Young, the film brings together many of the most recognizable ingredients of summer romance: an island, a first love, a girl trying to regain control of her life, and a relationship destined to encounter many problems. The result is a pleasant and sincere romantic film, supported above all by the chemistry between Maia Reficco and Fernando Lindez. But when The Last Sunrise tries to add weight to the story through illness, family conflict, secrets, and competing economic interests, it doesn’t always manage to give these elements the time and depth they need. And so a story that would have all the tools to truly excite often ends up being content to be a pleasant summer love story.
The Last Sunrise Movie Review: The Story Plot
Oriah, known as Ry (Reficco), is an American girl, college student, and dancer. One day, during a performance, she has an epileptic seizure due to congenital tuberous sclerosis and ends up in the hospital, where doctors explain that she has two options: undergo surgery, with the risk of losing important parts of her memory, or control the disease with medicines that will never cure her anyway. Fearing that he will lose all memory of the dance, Ry decides to take his medicine.
For the summer, her mother Isolde (Longoria) asks Ry to accompany her on a business trip to the largest island in the Balearics, where Isolde is originally from and where she plans to build yet another hotel. While her mother doesn’t leave the hotel and works all day, Oriah befriends receptionist Amara (Chloé Sweetlove), who shows her a private beach where she can go for a bath.
Here, Ry discovers that the beach is not only reserved, but it is reserved for nudists, so much so that his one-piece costume attracts the attention of Julian (Lindez), a young and beautiful local fisherman. The attention is obviously reciprocated, and even if their acquaintance begins with a disagreement on the beach and a fight on the street, it’s clear from the first moment that the two really like each other. And, as Amara says, “even if a story is meant to be short-lived doesn’t mean it’s not worth it”. To live it to the full, however, Ry decides to keep her illness to herself and no longer take the medicines that cloud her mind. Thus relying on fate, and if it serves Spanish healthcare.
The Last Sunrise Movie Review and Analysis
The two young protagonists are wonderful; there is a remarkable chemistry between them, and of course Longoria is always enchanting too. The Majorcan setting is captivating, and releasing this film at the end of August is a blow to the heart for those who have finished their holidays. The plot almost always flows smoothly, despite some acceleration and despite a couple of scenes where it’s unclear why two Spaniards speak English to each other (perhaps because someone in the cast doesn’t master the Balearic Catalan spoken by the other cast members?).
However, at the end of the fair and also of the film, we couldn’t help but think about the fact that if Ry can afford to take medicine and/or undergo surgery it’s only because she’s an American girl from a very wealthy family, and if something goes wrong while she’s on vacation in Spain she can always count on the much-despised public health among Americans. Perhaps this aspect deserved to be emphasized more by the film, but evidently the compatriots of that James Van Der Beek, forced to work and sell goods until his death, do not like being reminded how much health in the USA is a matter for the very rich or the very lucky.
The most convincing part of The Last Sunrise is also the simplest: seeing Ry and Julián fall in love. The film works especially in moments when it leaves the biggest conflicts behind and allows the two protagonists to get to know each other, joke and discover Mallorca together. Maia Reficco gives back well the desire for independence of a girl tired of being defined mainly by her own health. Ry doesn’t just want to fall in love: she wants to understand how much of her life she can finally decide for herself. Fernando Lindez, for his part, plays Julián with a lightheartedness that fits the tone of the story, and the chemistry between the two makes a relationship that, on paper, follows rather familiar coordinates believable. The film does not, in fact, try to reinvent summer romance.
The American girl, the local boy, the days at the beach, and the love that seems to exist only far from everyday life are elements already seen many times. Yet, at least when it focuses on the protagonists, this familiarity is not necessarily a problem. More interesting than expected is the relationship between Ry and Isolde. Eva Longoria plays an extremely protective mother, but the film at least partially avoids simply turning her into the obstacle that prevents her daughter from living. His fear has concrete motivations, just as Ry’s frustration with a life in which every choice seems to be subordinated to his condition is understandable.
The conflict becomes even stronger when Ry decides to stop the drugs on his own to fully experience his emotions. It’s a risky decision, which highlights how much his need for autonomy can conflict with the need to protect himself. This very report deserved even more space. The film finds some of its best nuances when it pits mother and daughter against each other without necessarily establishing who is right: Isolde fears losing Ry, while Ry fears that continuing to live only in fear means giving up his life before he has even truly lived it.
Complicating the story also comes the real reason for Isolde’s presence in Mallorca. His company wants to acquire the area linked to the Garcia family’s business to build a new hotel. Ry then finds herself in love with the very boy whose family risks losing what they own due to his mother’s financial interests. This is where The Last Sunrise begins to accumulate elements: Ry’s illness and his relationship with Julián are compounded by the real estate conflict, the Garcia family’s financial problems, and other complications designed to test the couple. The problem is not so much their presence, but the little space given to each. Some turns arrive like this without having the weight they should, while others are explained through dialogue instead of actually being constructed in front of the viewer. The risk is to turn a story that works well in its simplicity into a melodrama that is more crowded than necessary.
The soundtrack is stacked with big names—Billie Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter, Bad Bunny. It’s the kind of licensing budget that suggests the film had money behind it. But the songs feel like they were chosen by throwing darts at a Billboard chart rather than by any actual creative logic. They’re there for recognition alone, not because they elevate the scenes they’re attached to. A great soundtrack can transform a mediocre film. A bad soundtrack can make a film feel worse. The music in The Last Sunrise occupies a frustrating middle ground: it’s not actively terrible, but it’s distractingly arbitrary. You can hear the algorithm behind the choices, the calculation of “this song is popular, so it’ll make the scene feel important.” It doesn’t work. It just makes the whole thing feel like a product.
Mallorca is beautiful. The film is bright and sunny, which is a relief—too many movies equate tragedy with gray skies and muted colors. But the location is used like a postcard rather than a place. The town itself has no character. The local culture is reduced to a few flamenco dancers performing in a hotel lobby, presented so sterilely that they might as well be a screensaver. Compare this to the best destination romances, where the setting becomes a character in its own right—a place with its own rhythms, its own contradictions, its own specific flavor. The Last Sunrise treats Mallorca like a backdrop, interchangeable with any other Mediterranean coastal town. It’s not a place where real people live. It’s a screensaver with romantic potential.
The Last Sunrise Movie Review: The Last Words
A simple and pleasant summer romance, supported by the chemistry of the protagonists and an interesting mother-daughter relationship. However, when he tries to add more drama to the story, he doesn’t always manage to give his ideas the emotional weight they deserve. So yes, The Last Sunrise is a more than enjoyable film for these last few snippets of summer, but healthcare for everyone is definitely better. The film also deserves some credit for not stretching its thin premise into an eight-episode series. It’s a feature-length film, and it ends. That’s a small mercy.
