One of the perks of dating a film critic--yes, even one who self-identifies as an “online amateur”--is that they are regulars and members at just about every theater within a 20-mile radius of their house, which often results in rewards like free movie tickets. And if you are the girlfriend of said ticket-holder, well, you can guess what that means.
So Ian had free tickets to see this cute little indie movie, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (you know, the one that indieWIRE was shocked to hear had made less at the box office than Jurassic World?) and being the total sucker for good independent films that I am, I thought maybe it would be a good idea to go see it, so I tagged along. And that turned out to be a very, very good decision. Good enough, in fact, for me to attempt a review. So let’s jump right in. Here are ten reasons to go see Me and Earl and the Dying Girl right now:
1. The Cast
It’s not like the movie is packed with A-list stars. But it’s absolutely perfectly cast. The high-school kids actually look like high-school kids (was that a slam at Glee? why yes, it absolutely was!) and the adults, shocker of shockers, actually act like adults. There’s a few bigger names here and there, most notably Nick Offerman as Greg’s eccentric father, but when it came to casting the two leads they wisely went with actors who were professionals (previous credits of theirs include It’s Kind of A Funny Story, Bates Motel, iCarly and The Quiet Ones) but not huge-name Disney stars. Even better, Earl is played by a virtual unknown--more on him later. I know that casting alone doesn’t make or break a movie. But casting is a huge thing, as I found out the hard way with my first short films, and believe me, in this case, casting kind of did make the movie.
2. Rachel, Earl, and Greg
There are two things that I love about the dynamic between the three title characters: 1) the temptation to downshift into a Hunger Games-style love triangle was deliberately avoided, and 2) the development of the three-way friendship is perfectly natural. It’s not like Juno--much as I loved that movie, don’t get me wrong--where the three leading teenagers are so quirky and so ridiculous that they couldn’t possibly be friends with anyone but each other. Rachel is shown to have a social life outside her new friends, at least pre-cancer, and it’s established early on that Greg’s main flaw is that he tries far too hard to be an everyman. The characterization is spot-on, no one is allowed to be a flat stereotype, and at no point does the film fall back on the reasoning “well, look how not-mainstream they are, you HAVE to like them”--a hell of an accomplishment, considering that hipster has basically become the new cool.
3. The cancer storyline
I won’t spoil how things end for the “dying girl,” but I will say that I loved the way the film treated cancer. Again, it’s very easy to use illness as a plot device or--even worse--an obvious grab for an Oscar. But Alonso Gomez-Rejon, God bless the man, does not fall into that trap. In addition to a powerful, realistic portrayal of the way illness affects the loved ones of the afflicted, he opts out of showing Rachel in treatment, so we don’t see her puking from the chemotherapy or recovering from surgery. She is treated with dignity by the filmmakers, if not her classmates, who shower her with cards, flowers, and repeated choruses of “God has a plan!” In one memorable scene Greg, aided by a Wolverine poster, advises Rachel on how to respond to people who define her by her disease. It’s one of the best scenes in the film because it establishes early on that this is not just a “dying girl.” This is a person. And because the filmmakers treat her as such, so do we.
4. High school
High school stories have been beaten into atoms by the movie industry, ranging from the unrealistically upbeat to the unrealistically cynical to the outright insane. But Me and Earl and the Dying Girl portrays high school so achingly realistically that it doesn’t feel cliche at all. A stoner and a goth kid swear revenge on Greg after he accidentally incriminates them…only for one of them to forget the whole thing, and the other to attempt a truly pathetic follow-up months later. In another movie this would be a major plot point. In this one, it’s played out as a way to increase Greg’s sense of detachment from an environment that everyone around him takes extremely seriously. He doesn’t want to go to prom, or play football, or be popular. He just wants out. Even better: while everyone else views college as an escape, Greg accurately points out that it’s just another four years of school. Not too many high-school-centered flicks do that. This one, much to my excitement, actually does.
5. The movie parodies
So one of the plot points of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl revolves around the deliberately bad parodies that Greg and Earl make as homages to classic films. And for real, that alone was worth the price of admission. Admittedly some of them were so out there they’d only make a film student laugh (Sockwork Orange was my favorite--okay, I’m actually a huge dork, there we go, I admitted it, everyone happy now?) but if you’ve heard of literally any of the movies they parody in this film, you will laugh. Hard. And that brings us to…
6. The perfect split of comedy and drama
I’m so sick of filmmakers who act like a happy ending--or even the slightest bit of optimism--is poison for realism, when in reality, humor is one of the fastest ways to add realism to your movie, especially--for the love of God pay attention, indie filmmakers--if your movie is about teenagers. When I was in high school, there were days where I wanted to just crawl into my closet and disappear. (Though I don’t know where my logic was there. Maybe I’d just read The Chronicles of Narnia too many times.) And sure, movies do a great job of portraying that. Love us some audience tears, we filmmakers do. But there were also days when I laughed so hard I almost threw up, and there are so many teen dramas that forget to add that little bit of hope. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl walks the fine line between humor and sadness. And the result is truly amazing.
7. It’s not an action movie
Now don’t get me wrong, I like a good action movie just as much as the next moviegoer, as my unreasonable devotion to Chris Nolan demonstrates. And I think we’ve already established that I have nothing against blockbusters; in fact, I kind of love them. But you don’t have to be a film student to notice that summer is kind of the reigning season for blockbusters, and if you aren’t pumped up for Jurassic Park or Ant-Man or Terminator: Genysis, you’re out of luck. So if you don’t care to watch people get eaten by dinosaurs or see another unlikely superhero dramatically save an entire city single-handedly, here’s a movie you’ll love. If you are an action-film-addict, go see it anyway--you never know, you might love it too. And if you’re a no-preference dork like me who will see just about anything if the trailer looks good enough…what the hell are you waiting for?
8. Accurate portrayal of the artistic process
Okay, okay, this is a selfish one, but I really, really hate how often movies give the impression that the BEST IDEA EVER will come to you in a flash, or how someone miraculously comes up with the most perfect screenplay/film/song/poem/monologue in the history of art just in the nick of time. I expected the movie that Greg ends up making for Rachel to be OMG so perfect, but just like Greg himself, it is not. It takes him four months to come up with a movie that any other teenager on the face of the earth could dream up, and I thought that was pretty damn cool.
9. Avoid cliches like the plague?
Okay, the ending is predictably sappy and the message of love in the face of death is…well, it’s not exactly groundbreaking. But so many situations that could be predictable in this movie take a pleasantly surprising turn. We expect Greg and Rachel to fall in love; they don’t. We expect Greg to take Rachel to the prom; she doesn’t go. We expect cancer to make Rachel unreasonably profound; it doesn’t. We expect Mr. McCarthy to be the one turn Greg’s life around; he isn’t. We expect Greg and Earl, and Greg and Rachel, to have on-the-nose make-up scenes after their respective fights; they don’t. We expect Rachel to die--and no, I’m not going to spoil that part for you. Go see the damn movie. The point is, there’s a lot about the film that doesn’t meet expectations. And in that case, that’s a good thing.
10. It’s not Oscar-bait
Or maybe it is. I wasn’t in the heads of the collective filmmakers when they made this thing…but given that it probably started production before Julianne Moore and Eddie Redmayne won big at the Oscars, it’s a good bet. (I know, I know. We all know I hated the outcome of the Oscars this year. Moving on now.) In all seriousness, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is not a shameless grab for awards. It doesn’t present illness as The Issue Of The Year. It doesn’t make Rachel a martyr or Greg a hero. I loved that, because you can see when you watch the film that no one who was involved in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl thought they were making the next Juno or Little Miss Sunshine. They know this is a niche film, not a phenomenon. But it still has potential, and if I were you, I’d go see it. Right now.
Seriously. It’s that good.
So Ian had free tickets to see this cute little indie movie, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (you know, the one that indieWIRE was shocked to hear had made less at the box office than Jurassic World?) and being the total sucker for good independent films that I am, I thought maybe it would be a good idea to go see it, so I tagged along. And that turned out to be a very, very good decision. Good enough, in fact, for me to attempt a review. So let’s jump right in. Here are ten reasons to go see Me and Earl and the Dying Girl right now:
1. The Cast
It’s not like the movie is packed with A-list stars. But it’s absolutely perfectly cast. The high-school kids actually look like high-school kids (was that a slam at Glee? why yes, it absolutely was!) and the adults, shocker of shockers, actually act like adults. There’s a few bigger names here and there, most notably Nick Offerman as Greg’s eccentric father, but when it came to casting the two leads they wisely went with actors who were professionals (previous credits of theirs include It’s Kind of A Funny Story, Bates Motel, iCarly and The Quiet Ones) but not huge-name Disney stars. Even better, Earl is played by a virtual unknown--more on him later. I know that casting alone doesn’t make or break a movie. But casting is a huge thing, as I found out the hard way with my first short films, and believe me, in this case, casting kind of did make the movie.
2. Rachel, Earl, and Greg
There are two things that I love about the dynamic between the three title characters: 1) the temptation to downshift into a Hunger Games-style love triangle was deliberately avoided, and 2) the development of the three-way friendship is perfectly natural. It’s not like Juno--much as I loved that movie, don’t get me wrong--where the three leading teenagers are so quirky and so ridiculous that they couldn’t possibly be friends with anyone but each other. Rachel is shown to have a social life outside her new friends, at least pre-cancer, and it’s established early on that Greg’s main flaw is that he tries far too hard to be an everyman. The characterization is spot-on, no one is allowed to be a flat stereotype, and at no point does the film fall back on the reasoning “well, look how not-mainstream they are, you HAVE to like them”--a hell of an accomplishment, considering that hipster has basically become the new cool.
3. The cancer storyline
I won’t spoil how things end for the “dying girl,” but I will say that I loved the way the film treated cancer. Again, it’s very easy to use illness as a plot device or--even worse--an obvious grab for an Oscar. But Alonso Gomez-Rejon, God bless the man, does not fall into that trap. In addition to a powerful, realistic portrayal of the way illness affects the loved ones of the afflicted, he opts out of showing Rachel in treatment, so we don’t see her puking from the chemotherapy or recovering from surgery. She is treated with dignity by the filmmakers, if not her classmates, who shower her with cards, flowers, and repeated choruses of “God has a plan!” In one memorable scene Greg, aided by a Wolverine poster, advises Rachel on how to respond to people who define her by her disease. It’s one of the best scenes in the film because it establishes early on that this is not just a “dying girl.” This is a person. And because the filmmakers treat her as such, so do we.
4. High school
High school stories have been beaten into atoms by the movie industry, ranging from the unrealistically upbeat to the unrealistically cynical to the outright insane. But Me and Earl and the Dying Girl portrays high school so achingly realistically that it doesn’t feel cliche at all. A stoner and a goth kid swear revenge on Greg after he accidentally incriminates them…only for one of them to forget the whole thing, and the other to attempt a truly pathetic follow-up months later. In another movie this would be a major plot point. In this one, it’s played out as a way to increase Greg’s sense of detachment from an environment that everyone around him takes extremely seriously. He doesn’t want to go to prom, or play football, or be popular. He just wants out. Even better: while everyone else views college as an escape, Greg accurately points out that it’s just another four years of school. Not too many high-school-centered flicks do that. This one, much to my excitement, actually does.
5. The movie parodies
So one of the plot points of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl revolves around the deliberately bad parodies that Greg and Earl make as homages to classic films. And for real, that alone was worth the price of admission. Admittedly some of them were so out there they’d only make a film student laugh (Sockwork Orange was my favorite--okay, I’m actually a huge dork, there we go, I admitted it, everyone happy now?) but if you’ve heard of literally any of the movies they parody in this film, you will laugh. Hard. And that brings us to…
6. The perfect split of comedy and drama
I’m so sick of filmmakers who act like a happy ending--or even the slightest bit of optimism--is poison for realism, when in reality, humor is one of the fastest ways to add realism to your movie, especially--for the love of God pay attention, indie filmmakers--if your movie is about teenagers. When I was in high school, there were days where I wanted to just crawl into my closet and disappear. (Though I don’t know where my logic was there. Maybe I’d just read The Chronicles of Narnia too many times.) And sure, movies do a great job of portraying that. Love us some audience tears, we filmmakers do. But there were also days when I laughed so hard I almost threw up, and there are so many teen dramas that forget to add that little bit of hope. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl walks the fine line between humor and sadness. And the result is truly amazing.
7. It’s not an action movie
Now don’t get me wrong, I like a good action movie just as much as the next moviegoer, as my unreasonable devotion to Chris Nolan demonstrates. And I think we’ve already established that I have nothing against blockbusters; in fact, I kind of love them. But you don’t have to be a film student to notice that summer is kind of the reigning season for blockbusters, and if you aren’t pumped up for Jurassic Park or Ant-Man or Terminator: Genysis, you’re out of luck. So if you don’t care to watch people get eaten by dinosaurs or see another unlikely superhero dramatically save an entire city single-handedly, here’s a movie you’ll love. If you are an action-film-addict, go see it anyway--you never know, you might love it too. And if you’re a no-preference dork like me who will see just about anything if the trailer looks good enough…what the hell are you waiting for?
8. Accurate portrayal of the artistic process
Okay, okay, this is a selfish one, but I really, really hate how often movies give the impression that the BEST IDEA EVER will come to you in a flash, or how someone miraculously comes up with the most perfect screenplay/film/song/poem/monologue in the history of art just in the nick of time. I expected the movie that Greg ends up making for Rachel to be OMG so perfect, but just like Greg himself, it is not. It takes him four months to come up with a movie that any other teenager on the face of the earth could dream up, and I thought that was pretty damn cool.
9. Avoid cliches like the plague?
Okay, the ending is predictably sappy and the message of love in the face of death is…well, it’s not exactly groundbreaking. But so many situations that could be predictable in this movie take a pleasantly surprising turn. We expect Greg and Rachel to fall in love; they don’t. We expect Greg to take Rachel to the prom; she doesn’t go. We expect cancer to make Rachel unreasonably profound; it doesn’t. We expect Mr. McCarthy to be the one turn Greg’s life around; he isn’t. We expect Greg and Earl, and Greg and Rachel, to have on-the-nose make-up scenes after their respective fights; they don’t. We expect Rachel to die--and no, I’m not going to spoil that part for you. Go see the damn movie. The point is, there’s a lot about the film that doesn’t meet expectations. And in that case, that’s a good thing.
10. It’s not Oscar-bait
Or maybe it is. I wasn’t in the heads of the collective filmmakers when they made this thing…but given that it probably started production before Julianne Moore and Eddie Redmayne won big at the Oscars, it’s a good bet. (I know, I know. We all know I hated the outcome of the Oscars this year. Moving on now.) In all seriousness, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is not a shameless grab for awards. It doesn’t present illness as The Issue Of The Year. It doesn’t make Rachel a martyr or Greg a hero. I loved that, because you can see when you watch the film that no one who was involved in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl thought they were making the next Juno or Little Miss Sunshine. They know this is a niche film, not a phenomenon. But it still has potential, and if I were you, I’d go see it. Right now.
Seriously. It’s that good.
No comments:
Post a Comment