Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015)

I started writing this review ages ago, but got so worked up every time that I never finished it. Here is what I had....maybe I'll finish? Honestly this movie was SO BAD that I don't want to think about it anymore. It was small, but did well in festivals. It is easy, great for bozos who want to think they get film. (I know I sound like THE WORST, but seriously, this movie is SO MUCH WORSE than I am)

Screenshot from trailer

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The problem with writing commentary on this film is that there is so much to say that I would prefer to pop some popcorn and host a screening where I make everyone listen to me point out what is wrong and why. That probably wouldn’t be very much fun for anyone but me, so we’ll settle with what I can get down in words.

The Part Where I Introduce You to the Film With Little Effort to Hide My Dislike

Write what you know. Unless what you know is yourself, and yourself is narcissistic, insipid, shallow, unoriginal, and—I’m sorry, did I type that out loud?

            The film Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015), hereon referred to as MEDG, is pretty awful, but that hasn’t stopped it from having outstanding ratings on the likes of MetaCritic and IMDb, or from receiving the rave reviews from critics impressed by its uniqueness, or from winning 15 awards across the globe. Though most of these awards are in the realm of “Best Narrative Film”, it did, to my relief, receive one award for last year’s Worst Film. At least someone has some sense.

The Part Where I Give You the Premise

Which Sucks

            Greg is the protagonist. Earl is his friend. The Dying Girl is a dying girl. She lives next door.

Once Rachel, aka the Dying Girl, gets diagnosed with cancer, Greg’s mother makes him visit her. They hang. She gets sicker. Greg has to work through the difficulties of her sickness and the everyday challenges of being a high schooler.

I see what you're trying to do there, please stop;
aka screenshot from trailer

Why My Face Was Contorted Unflatteringly For Most of the Film

            Does the world really need another movie about an upper middle-class white boy who comes of age and ultimately finds himself through the trials of others? It doesn’t matter, because the world got it.

            I want to take a moment to clarify that I believe that stories about someone fitting these demographics have every opportunity to be great. The problem is, they often reinforce stereotypes and oppressive notions of people who do not fit into that category, swamping the media market because of the hold that people of this demographic hold. For clarification, read on.

Let’s start with the camerawork. Someone got out their notes from intro to film class and decided to include a few of every angle they could think of with the craziest lenses they could get their hands on. Canted angles? Dolly shots? Distorted shots? These tools are meant to help tell a story. MEDG seems to use them less for a storytelling purpose, and more for a “cool” factor. Their messages are heavy-handed, but confused. Ultimately, the hodgepodge of techniques makes the film look sloppy and unnatural.

The camerawork is one of the many obvious attempts to salute the significant filmmakers of history (that wandering camera is straight out of Antonioni’s The Passenger). If you didn’t pick up on that, have no fear! This film won’t let you think for yourself for a moment! Not only is one of the subplots of the movie Greg and Earl making a film for Rachel, but these two rascals grew up loving classic films! In fact, they loved these classics so much that they made quirky spinoffs referencing them throughout their youth! This is where it becomes painfully obvious that this movie is somebody’s self-important passion project. I am all for referencing works that have been an important part of one’s art education, but forcing so many ~quirky~ spin-off titles down the audience’s throat is not developing any characters—it is a cheap attempt at having an inside joke with the audience—that is, anyone in the audience who has had an intro-level film history course. Did I mention that there is even some Claymation going on? Ugh.

Clever, really; screenshot from trailer

Now let’s talk characters. Greg narrates the film with a voiceover. A voiceover tends to indicate some modicum of confidence and surety. Most teenagers don’t have that (unless they’re theatre kids, they’re another breed). Greg references his lameness/dorky-ness/loser-ness a lot throughout the film, yet he still has the confidence to narrate it. He is supposed to be quirky and pathetic, a sad loner without much of a group in school.  Instead of showing us, the film tells us regularly out of Greg’s own mouth (he says he is invisible, but goes around yelling in the cafeteria). Raise your hand if you enjoy hearing someone who seems to have it pretty darn alright complain about how outcasted they are with a dumb smile on their face? Nobody? That’s what I thought. The film does seem to attempt to make this problem a theme by surrounding Greg with Earl (who is black) and Rachel (who is dying), who deal with some real shit while Greg can’t get his head out of his own ass to truly see it. This falls flat as the film ends with Greg using this experience as a college essay and successfully getting in despite his academic failures (with a little help from Rachel). So Greg grows as a person. Greg goes to college. Greg wins.  Yay Greg.

On the flip side, we have Earl, a black teenager who grew up in a harsher side of town than Greg. The two became friends as children, and have been ever since. MEDG tries to make this a commentary, but fails. Instead, it makes black stereotypes a kind of joke as Earl’s brother makes rowdy comments and scares Greg with his dog. Earl is also very obsessed with “titties” and sex in a way that Greg is not, making for an uncomfortable way of presenting women as sexual objects, and Greg being the subtle hero for not thinking this way. MEDG doesn’t present Earl as much of a developed character, but as a tool to add more elements to the story. This is probably how someone as self-involved as Greg sees Earl as well, and since Greg is the narrator it could kind of work, but it doesn’t. Because we never get to see Greg truly understand things differently, and we never get to see things outside of his perspective—we are, throughout the entire movie, told to trust Greg and follow his story.

omg this deep focus; screenshot from trailer

Now, this “dying girl”. (I think here I was going to start ranting about how I don't know why she is this kid's friend, how she is so self-aware and so flat and boring, how this kid makes it all about him but the movie is about him realizing this but it is done so masturbatorily....I can go on.)

A few bullet points that I intended to write paragraphs on but do not care to:

·      Subtitles are not a substitute for character and story development

·      Very few public high schools that I am aware of look as nice as this one

·      If it doesn’t tell the story, don’t include it.

o   Rachel’s mother the alcoholic, who got a lot of screen time, really doesn’t add much but a few cheap gags that really downplayed what it looks like to have an alcoholic parent

o   The professor really had no role in the movie. He was there throughout, but what did he even add?

o   Why were drugs part of any of it? What in the world did that storyline have to do with the film?

o   The Goth kid was there for laughs as well, without any real purpose

·      Subtlety makes a story feel real. Being heavy-handed with things and ideas that are supposed to make characters seem both quirky and developed (see Rachel’s interest in squirrels and scissors) just shows your inability to tell a story well

Screenshot from trailer

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I'm sure that someone who loves this movie could come at me with "well, that's the point" on many of these topics. Protagonists can be shitty and flawed, even when they narrate, certainly. This movie tries to make some of its flaws the point, but ultimately fails miserably, because it doesn't understand itself. It comes across as this sad, floppy fish on a deck of a ship, telling me that it is swimming, not flopping. 

 To sum it all up, in the words of my boy: "I don't know, could you make a more disingenuine movie?"

Don't watch the movie, but if you must watch the trailer, you can find it here