Midnight Sun

Midnight Sun (2018) is about a teenage girl who cannot go out in daylight. Katie has xeroderma pigmentosum, a genetic condition in which exposure to ultraviolet light causes cellular damage and death. Her house is fitted with filtered glass. She sleeps by day and lives at night. Every night she goes to the railway station and plays guitar. Charlie, whom she has watched from her window for years, hears her there one night. She does not tell him about her condition. The relationship happens at night, they cannot meet in daylight, and when he asks why she deflects. The depiction of the illness caused argument. Xeroderma pigmentosum is real and rare, but the film uses it as a romantic obstacle, and its symptoms and course do not match the medical picture. Families affected by it said the film presented the condition as too clean and too pretty. It is a remake of the 2006 Japanese film Taiyō no Uta. Bella Thorne and Patrick Schwarzenegger star. Thorne sang her own songs. Scott Speer directed; he came from music videos and the texture comes from there. It did not do well and critics were harsh. The sentiment runs high and the ending stays inside the genre. The father is the best written thing in it; a man who has protected his daughter for years and has to learn to let go. It runs 91 minutes. Good for: teenage romance, musical drama, and undemanding viewing. Less good for: the illness is not depicted realistically and the ending is built to make you cry.