Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (15.)
Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon.
Starring Thomas Mann, Olivia Cooke, RJ Cyler, Nick Offerman and Molly Shannon. 105 mins. Released on September 4th.
That title, which is both striking and attention grabbing yet also twee and a little annoying, really fits the film. It forges an improbable path from brash high school outsider comedy to teen cancer weepie. Going in you sense that this film could go either way: coming out you realise that it did.
Greg (Mann) has perfected a way of skimming painlessly through high school by being on nodding terms with every lunch hall clique while remaining totally unaffiliated. He can do this because he's smart enough to amuse the cool kids and dorky enough to fit in with the outsiders. He himself is a mass of self loathing and uncertainty, and his only break from this world of acquaintances is his sort of friend Earl (Cyler), who he makes film parodies with: A Sockwork Orange, Eyes Wide Butt, Death in Tennis. During his final year he is forced by his mother to go and make friends with a girl he doesn't know who has contracted leukaemia, Rachel (Cooke.)
Me and Earl is full of moments of grace and hilarity. The young cast are appealing though it is the supporting adult cast that get the scene stealing glories. Nick Offerman droll deadpan style seems designed to make Bill Murray look like he's trying too hard, while Molly Shannon is desperately good as Rachel's mother. The direction is marvellously assured and bold, playing little games with expectations. For example supposed friends Earl and Greg appear to have absolutely no connection with each other. Earl seems to have been conceived as a parody of the Stereotype Black Mate role, casually inserted as a sore thumb to stick out in this wimpy white world.
It is a smart arsed film about the limitations of being smart arsed. The film's theme is how an irony cosseted generation that has learned to be studiedly unaffected by everything comes to deal with harsh, unforgiving reality. (It is also about how we use art to filter through and deal with these emotions – the film is structured as Greg's journal with him as the unreliable narrator.) Like Greg, the film skims along and seems to be touching bases with many different styles. It may ultimately be a dying young melodrama, but it does its best not to be obvious about it. To be honest I liked it better when it was being flip and funny then sad and weepy, because you'd be insane to prefer sad and weepy to flip and funny. It is genuinely moving, though I did feel I a little bit had in retrospect; suckered in with the promise of Heathers only to gradually be delivered to Fault In our Stars
Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon.
Starring Thomas Mann, Olivia Cooke, RJ Cyler, Nick Offerman and Molly Shannon. 105 mins. Released on September 4th.
That title, which is both striking and attention grabbing yet also twee and a little annoying, really fits the film. It forges an improbable path from brash high school outsider comedy to teen cancer weepie. Going in you sense that this film could go either way: coming out you realise that it did.
Greg (Mann) has perfected a way of skimming painlessly through high school by being on nodding terms with every lunch hall clique while remaining totally unaffiliated. He can do this because he's smart enough to amuse the cool kids and dorky enough to fit in with the outsiders. He himself is a mass of self loathing and uncertainty, and his only break from this world of acquaintances is his sort of friend Earl (Cyler), who he makes film parodies with: A Sockwork Orange, Eyes Wide Butt, Death in Tennis. During his final year he is forced by his mother to go and make friends with a girl he doesn't know who has contracted leukaemia, Rachel (Cooke.)
Me and Earl is full of moments of grace and hilarity. The young cast are appealing though it is the supporting adult cast that get the scene stealing glories. Nick Offerman droll deadpan style seems designed to make Bill Murray look like he's trying too hard, while Molly Shannon is desperately good as Rachel's mother. The direction is marvellously assured and bold, playing little games with expectations. For example supposed friends Earl and Greg appear to have absolutely no connection with each other. Earl seems to have been conceived as a parody of the Stereotype Black Mate role, casually inserted as a sore thumb to stick out in this wimpy white world.
It is a smart arsed film about the limitations of being smart arsed. The film's theme is how an irony cosseted generation that has learned to be studiedly unaffected by everything comes to deal with harsh, unforgiving reality. (It is also about how we use art to filter through and deal with these emotions – the film is structured as Greg's journal with him as the unreliable narrator.) Like Greg, the film skims along and seems to be touching bases with many different styles. It may ultimately be a dying young melodrama, but it does its best not to be obvious about it. To be honest I liked it better when it was being flip and funny then sad and weepy, because you'd be insane to prefer sad and weepy to flip and funny. It is genuinely moving, though I did feel I a little bit had in retrospect; suckered in with the promise of Heathers only to gradually be delivered to Fault In our Stars
