The Last Sunrise review – Amazon’s soapy YA romance is thankless and bland

Another familiar concoction fails to make use of its sunny location and chooses cheap melodrama over romantic charmA titular sunrise, a summer fling fantasy, exorbitant wealth, impossibly sculpted bodies: such are the profitable story ingredients that make up The Last Sunrise, the latest offering in Amazon’s endless catalogue of “romance content”. I wouldn’t ordinarily use that term to describe a film, but it fits The Last Sunrise (indifferently directed by Carlson Young) like a glove. The movie is an adaptation of the 2025 novel of the same title by Anna Todd, whose After series – itself adapted from Todd’s phenomenally popular One Direction fan fiction – was wrung dry between 2019 and 2024.In recent years, a particular romance category has yielded high returns for Amazon: from this summer’s Every Year After to The Summer I Turned Pretty’s memorable run, these stories are easily palatable, set in idyllic locations, and orbit attractive, heterosexual, wealthy couples. Nothing new there – one need look no further than any run-of-the-mill 2000s romcom to find the same tropes. But the narrative simplicity that once made room for electric chemistry between leads, perfectly tailored wa…