The Last Sunrise

From where I stand, as I have said before, predictability is the cardinal sin of filmmaking. If one can foresee what’s going to happen, there’s little point in watching the movie, now is there? And, unfortunately, such is the case here in the latest release from director Carlson Young. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name (2025) by Anna Todd, the cinematic version of this story is a clinic in formulaic filmmaking, where virtually every plot development is apparent from miles away. Indeed, it’s the kind of picture better suited to the sappy sensibilities of The Hallmark Channel than other less cheesy distribution platforms. “The Last Sunrise” tells the tale of a young Houston-based dancer, Oriah (a.k.a. “Ry”) Pera (Maia Reficco), who’s afflicted with a tumorous condition that causes epilepsy. Her prospects aren’t favorable after she suffers an on-stage accident, prompting her mother, Isolde (Eva Longoria), to take her for a summer’s recuperation on the Spanish resort island of Mallorca, where mom is working on a massive new hotel project for a real estate developer. Isolde’s also anxious for her daughter to see where her mom grew up and to reconnect to her own roots, but, once there, her work keeps her so busy that she and Ry spend little time together. With so much free time on her hands, Ry routinely goes off on her own, a practice that unwittingly takes her to a clothing optional beach and introduces her to Julian (Fernando Lindez), a bad boy with an attitude who, paradoxically, works as a humble fisherman with a passionate ecological agenda. And, of course, they naturally fall for one another. But, as their holiday romance emerges, they each hide secrets from one another (she, her illness, and he, his outstanding debt to a badass loan shark), all of which are piled atop even bigger disclosures of which neither of them is aware. So how will everything play out? Well, as discussed earlier, that shouldn’t be too hard to figure out as all the requisite pi...