A 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 wardrobes and irresistibly depicted locales has given way to cheap melodrama. With its improbable plot twists, family secrets and at least one across-the-face slap, The Last Sunrise is more soap opera than Under the Tuscan Sun.
The soapy mood is accentuated by the presence of Eva Longoria, who gave life to Gabrielle Solis in ABC’s long-running prime-time soap Desperate Housewives. Here, Longoria plays Isolde Pera, the mother of protagonist Oriah (Maia Reficco), a young dancer who suffers from tuberous sclerosis, a rare genetic condition that causes tumors to grow in different organs. Oriah joins her mom on a summer-long trip to the Spanish island of Mallorca, where Isolde grew up and where her company, Redwyn, is preparing to build a swanky new hotel. The trip comes at a good time for Oriah, who finds herself at a medical crossroads after suffering a seizure on stage: she can either increase her medication dosage or have surgery.
The pills numb Oriah’s feelings, but surgery would put her at risk of losing her memory. She opts for the former, though upon arriving in Mallorca, she quickly dispenses with treatment altogether – she wants to feel every passionate second of her summer fling with Julián Garcia (Fernando Lindez), a curly haired local fisher. Oriah insists that the pills make her numb, but we never see any evidence to back up the statement. There is scarcely any dramatic modulation in Oriah’s character at all, whether imposed by the story or Reficco’s performance. In fact, despite being the main character, Oriah makes little impact on the plot – mostly, things happen to her. Even then, these events are not dramatized; instead, they are described by characters in dialogue.
Take, as an example, the fact that Redwyn is angling to buy the fishing docks owned by the Garcias, thereby destroying a century-old business and breaking Julián’s heart. This conflict is supposed to raise the stakes of Oriah and Julián’s involvement; it is their major obstacle, the cross-purpose that leads Oriah to describe their romance as “Romeo-and-Juliet-serious” to a friend. But apart from some papers that are dutifully waved around, any work that would have gone into this deal goes unseen. The disputed land – of which Julián is so fond that he goes into debt with a gangster-ish loan shark in a vague, off-screen attempt to save it – is never shown, either. The Garcias’ fishing boat could have just as easily been at port in Gloucester, Massachusetts, so perfunctorily is its mooring depicted.
For a story ostensibly concerned with the fierce attachments a person might feel to the place they call home, The Last Sunrise is bizarrely devoid of texture. Mallorca is photographed like a stock image, its specificities digitally scrubbed clean. Films like Under the Tuscan Sun and Eat, Pray, Love endure in part because their fantasy versions of Italy are rendered in minute, loving detail; it’s impossible not to wonder how much The Last Sunrise might have benefited from a cinematographer and production designer committed to transporting the viewer to Mallorca. Paired with the lack of interest in the dramatic mechanics of the plot, this disregard for visual storytelling raises the question: why make a movie at all?
Oh, right: money. In recent years, romance – which has long been maligned as an “unserious” genre – has regained prominence in the cultural spotlight. The romcom died and was reborn as steamy television; commercial romance fiction filled with graphic detail. But as the genre returns to its position as a pillar of the entertainment industry, the human-scale simplicity that gave us Bridget Jones’s Diary has been neglected and replaced by half-baked efforts like The Last Sunrise – the main value of which is to expose, all too clearly, how indifferently streaming platforms regard their audience.
The Last Sunrise is now available on Amazon Prime Video
