Aug 30, 2026 10:30pm IST
‘The Last Sunrise’ Review: Maia Reficco, Fernando Lindez Summer Romance is All Looks and No Personality
A summer romance set in Mallorca should evoke the feeling of warm sun on your skin, the salty ocean breeze cooling the heat coming in waves off bodies and the electric buzz of possibility. ‘The Last Sunrise’, Prime Video’s latest YA offering based on Anna Todd’s 2025 novel of the same name, teases that exact feeling in its trailer. But the film, starring Maia Reficco and Fernando Lindez alongside Eva Longoria, is a smokescreen, or a mere Instagram filter that looks pretty but has no real personality.
Oriah “Ry” Pera (Reficco) is a teenager with chronic epilepsy, whose life is mostly medication and a constant reminder that she needs brain surgery that could cause memory loss. Her only respite is dance and the company she performs with, which also includes her best friend. Ry’s single mother, Isolde (Eva Longoria), asks her to tag along to Mallorca, her hometown, where she’ll be busy closing a work deal while Ry can have six weeks of golden summer, provided she takes her medications on time. At a breathtaking luxury resort, Ry makes friends with the spunky Amara (Chloé Sweetlove), explores the place where her mother grew up and falls in love with a local, Juliàn Garcia (Lindez), who has his own complicated story.
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The one thing Ry doesn’t do shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to the usual audience of this genre. Her meds make her numb, and the more interesting her life gets, the more she avoids taking the pills. While this was expected the moment the trailer dropped, it is also how “The Last Sunrise” earns its first strike. Call it predictability, or being completely ruined by the maturity shown by the characters in Prime Video’s other recent YA phenomenon, “Sterling Point,” but the trope of teenagers acting rashly elicits heavy sighs at this point. Because there are better ways of creating fiction for the plot.
Ry’s entire character conflict being that she stops taking her medication so she can collapse at the opportune moment feels like lazy storytelling. Especially since the writing doesn’t establish anything about her personality that might indicate she’d want to take this drastic step. In fact, as is the norm with YA stories, adult supervision is minimal here too. And you’d find the lack of involvement of Ry’s mother in the life of her chronically ill teen positively appalling, had it not been evident that Ry is a good kid. Ry’s rebellion—skipping meds and drinking alcohol despite being warned not to—seems unearned because there is no triggering incident or side effects of the pills shown until the moment Isolde confronts her about it, much later in the film.
The whole setup is that Mallorca is where Isolde grew up, and yet, she never once shows her daughter around. A few scenes of them having breakfast together or watching a local dance performance (because, of course, they must underline that Ry is a dancer) are all we get. Eva Longoria, much like every other supporting character, is grossly underutilised. It’s an underdeveloped relationship, barring one impactful moment when Ry questions her mother’s capitalist motives and gets shut down because the money is what helps her single mother pay the medical bills. The bar is low, but this genre is notorious for indulging romantic notions of “doing the right thing.” It is refreshing to see an adult educate their child about self-preservational financial decisions!
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Now, coming to the central story, the chemistry between the leads, Reficco and Lindez, both of whom look extremely gorgeous against the backdrop of stunning Spanish beaches, is definitely there. But there aren’t enough moments between them to crank up the heat, and it feels wasted. The attraction between the two is swift, not just in a whirlwind summer-romance kind of way, but more undercooked and a “Do they know each other that well?” way. It makes the film seem even more superficial, with the entire story spanning barely a week.
Juliàn’s hot, angsty local fisherman act feels clichéd, especially when he calls Ry a very original nickname, “Miss America.” It’s cute in Lindez’s accent, but it’s a tired trope where the guy in every second YA story teases the girl from out of town with her city name. Please put this one to rest, pronto.
“The Last Sunrise” has the misfortune of arriving at a time when the YA genre is firing on all cylinders. And to stand out, it must offer an X factor, even if it is, in its most basic essence, a derivative summer romance. And that X factor, that personality which would make it an entry worth remembering, seems to be missing from its adapted screenplay. It looks gorgeous, and it sounds lovely. But that’s like Ry falling in love with Juliàn only because he looks hot. It’s not enough, is it? There are plenty of fish in the ocean.
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