Me and Earl and the Dying Girl - Film Review

Left to Right: Olivia Cooke, Thomas Man, and RJ Cyler in "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl"

Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

Quality (out of 4): ⭐️⭐️1/2

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is the latest offering in a string of movies that have debuted at the Sundance Film Festival that have gone on to win both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award there, but unlike its predecessors (Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Whiplash) this film is wildly empty for its content, distant for its subject, and average for its accolades. 

The film uses the plot device of a much better movie about teens called "The Spectacular Now" (also played at Sundance) which has the main character Greg (played by Thomas Man) writing a letter to the admissions department of a local college explaining why he should be admitted. The body of the letter tells the story of a "doomed friendship" between him and a girl newly diagnosed with leukemia named Rachel whom lives next door. What is frustrating about the film is that it tries really hard to be poignant, heartfelt, truthful, and moving -- and it succeeds on occasions that are few and miles between -- but ultimately ends up as a self-obsessed, void, manipulative story with a few shining moments of real effectiveness. 

Much has been written on the film's constant need to road-map its storytelling beats by insisting upon titles at the beginning of scenes that reflect that scene's content. "Day 90 of Doomed Friendship" and "The Part when ______" capitalize practically every scene. The idea behind this was to poke fun at cliche teen dramas, but it's gets annoying once you realize that you're actually watching a cliche teen drama -- a fact the movie is in complete denial about. It tries so hard not to be a typical love story just to end up being a typical love story. Screenwriter Jesse Andrews thought that if he didn't have his main characters admit that they were in love that he was being inventive and original in the genre. He also goes so far as to have Greg proclaim through narration that "if this was a romantic story we'd be kissing..." but the movie is a romantic story just without love declarations and make-out scenes. 

While I admit that the way teen love is portrayed in the film is closer to reality than most similar movies -- insofar as the characters being conservative about their feelings toward each other -- I can't say that the movie is a winner because that's not what it's really about. The filmmakers use the love subplot to tell us  a story about a young man (Greg) who is so selfish that he can't stop thinking only of himself even when someone close to him is dying. It's an admirable story to tell but with the circumstances that the movie sets up, it's hard to believe that Greg is even a selfish person to begin with. The dying girl in the title is Rachel and at the beginning of the story Greg barely knows her even though they go to the same school and  live close to each other.  He he forced by his mom to offer her some type of companionship which he doesn't want to do because he doesn't know her and the entire act would be disingenuous. He goes along with it despite of this and little by little the happiness of poor Rachel is Greg's responsibility according to the people around him, as if it was his fault she's suffering from a terminal illness.  

The audience is supposed to perceive Greg as selfish for wanting time to himself/nothing to do with Rachel in general but once you realize that Greg was forced to even say two words to her it's easy to understand why Greg isn't enthusiastic about making Rachel's last days the best she's ever had. The story would work much better if Rachel was his sister or mother because it would be hard to excuse a person that didn't comfort their own mother before she died if he/she could. But it couldn't have been a love story if the dying girl was a family member. Or could it? The movie asserts it's not "a touching romantic story" anyway (although it is minus the touching part). 

There is one standout scene in the film when Rachel tells Greg about a life-changing decision as it relates to her illness that actually did come off as honest, and heartbreaking, but one scene cannot make up for an entire film that's preparing for an emotional climax that has no narrative arc to support it. It is downright manipulative in it's final segments by trying to sell us on a watered-down love story finale that comes off just as weird and disingenuous as Greg's initial meeting with Rachel. 

Apart from some funny moments and strong performances across the board, particularly Olivia Cooke who couldn't have been better cast as Rachel and plays her with brutal accuracy of her age and place, the film offers little in terms of cinematography, score, production design, and editing that can distract from its wishy-washy story. I wish there was more to this film because not much really happens and there are glimmers of a good movie underneath the sludge, but I can't judge it on what it could have been. What it is is just another average romantic teen movie.    Kiah Simons