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  • 2018 Films
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  • 2016 Films
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    • 3 Stars >
      • Allied
      • Arrival
      • Author: The JT LeRoy Story
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    • 1 Star >
      • Gods of Egypt
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      • Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
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      • Run All Night
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  • 2014 Films
    • 4 Stars >
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    • 3.5 Stars >
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    • 3 Stars >
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      • Draft Day
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    • 2.5 Stars >
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    • 2 Stars >
      • 300: Rise of an Empire
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      • A Haunted House 2
  • 2013 Films
    • 4 Stars >
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    • 3.5 Stars >
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    • 3 Stars >
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      • Thanks for Sharing
      • Thor: The Dark World
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    • 2.5 Stars >
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      • Gloria
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      • In a World...
      • Love Is All You Need
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    • 2 Stars >
      • Byzantium
      • The Counselor
      • Disconnect
      • G.I. Joe: Retaliation
      • Gangster Squad
      • Grudge Match
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      • Machete Kills
      • Now You See Me
    • 1.5 Stars >
      • Drinking Buddies
      • The Family
      • Girl Most Likely
      • Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
      • The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
      • The Lone Ranger
      • Parker
    • 1 Star >
      • The Hangover Part III
      • A Haunted House
      • John Dies at the End
      • The Last Stand
      • Oz the Great and Powerful
      • Spring Breakers
    • 0.5 Stars >
      • Escape from Tomorrow
      • Evil Dead
      • A Good Day to Die Hard
  • 2012 Films
    • 4 Stars >
      • Argo
      • Bernie
      • Cloud Atlas
      • Django Unchained
      • Lincoln
      • Take this Waltz
    • 3.5 Stars >
      • 5 Broken Cameras
      • Amour
      • Arbitrage
      • Chronicle
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      • Moonrise Kingdom
      • The Perks of Being a Wallflower
      • The Queen of Versailles
      • The Raid: Redemption
      • Skyfall
      • The Woman in the Fifth
    • 3 Stars >
      • Act of Valor
      • American Reunion
      • Anna Karenina
      • The Avengers
      • Beasts of the Southern Wild
      • Celeste & Jesse Forever
      • The Dark Knight Rises
      • Frankenweenie
      • Haywire
      • Hitchcock
      • The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
      • The Master
      • Not Fade Away
      • Oslo, August 31st
      • The Other Dream Team
      • The Sessions
      • Seven Psychopaths
      • Silver Linings Playbook
      • Sleepwalk With Me
      • To Rome with Love
      • Your Sister's Sister
      • Zero Dark Thirty
    • 2.5 Stars >
      • The Amazing Spider-Man
      • Farewell, My Queen
      • The Hunger Games
      • The Oranges
      • Robot & Frank
      • Safe House
      • Safety Not Guaranteed
    • 2 Stars >
      • The Deep Blue Sea
      • Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
      • Taken 2
      • The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2
    • 1.5 Stars >
      • The Bourne Legacy
      • Damsels in Distress
      • Lockout
      • Underworld: Awakening
      • Wrath of the Titans
    • 1 Star >
      • 2 Days in New York
  • 2011 Films
    • 4 Stars >
      • Another Earth
      • The Artist
      • Hugo
      • Midnight in Paris
    • 3.5 Stars >
      • 50/50
      • The Devil's Double
      • Drive
      • The Hedgehog
      • The Help
      • The Ides of March
      • J. Edgar
      • The Mill and the Cross
      • My Afternoons with Margueritte
      • My Week with Marilyn
      • Mysteries of Lisbon
      • The Skin I Live In
      • Super 8
      • Young Adult
    • 3 Stars >
      • Albert Nobbs
      • Anonymous
      • Attack the Block
      • Bellflower
      • Circumstance
      • Colombiana
      • The Future
      • Happy, Happy
      • Incendies
      • Jane Eyre
      • Limitless
      • Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
      • Moneyball
      • The Names of Love
      • Page One: Inside the New York Times
      • Pianomania
      • Queen to Play
      • Rise of the Planet of the Apes
      • Senna
      • Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
      • Tower Heist
      • The Trip
      • Undefeated
      • A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas
      • The Way
      • The Whistleblower
    • 2.5 Stars >
      • Captain America: The First Avenger
      • Conan O'Brien Can't Stop
      • Crazy, Stupid, Love
      • Griff the Invisible
      • The Guard
      • Hanna
      • The Interrupters
      • The Iron Lady
      • Killer Elite
      • Love Crime
      • The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby
      • Margin Call
      • The Tree of Life
      • The Turin Horse
    • 2 Stars >
      • Bad Teacher
      • Blackthorn
      • Cowboys & Aliens
      • The Debt
      • The Descendants
      • Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame
      • The Double Hour
      • Higher Ground
      • Immortals
      • In Darkness
      • Shame
      • Take Shelter
    • 1.5 Stars >
      • Brighton Rock
      • Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
      • Martha Marcy May Marlene
      • One Day
      • Priest
      • Restless
    • 1 Star >
      • The Three Musketeers
      • Toast
      • Transformers: Dark of the Moon
  • Misc...
    • 2020 AFI DOCs Film Festival
    • 2020 Academy Award Best Documentary Short Films
    • 2019 Middleburg Film Festival
    • 2019 AFI DOCS Film Festival
    • 2018 AFI DOCS Film Festival
    • 2017 Middleburg Film Festival
    • 2016 Middleburg Film Festival
  • Review Index
  • About Me

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Picture

Directed by: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Written by: Jesse Andrews
Starring: Thomas Mann, Olivia Cooke, RJ Cyler, Nick Offerman, Molly Shannon, Jon Bernthal, Connie Britton, Matt Bennett, Katherine Hughes, Masam Holden, Bobb'e J. Thompson
Drama - 105 min          Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 19 May 2015

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Veering away from the canned formula of ‘teenager has cancer’ movie, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is not about the girl; it’s about a boy who kind of knows her.  This quirky, indie tale is also not a budding romance cut short nor an over sentimental tearjerker exploiting your sympathy glands.  It’s funny, and at times, the movie about a 17 year old with leukemia is downright hysterical.  The winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s top two awards, voted best film by both judges and audience alike, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a bit too cute by half, yet still an enjoyable and refreshing break away from smarmy rubbish like The Fault in Our Stars.

High school senior Greg (Thomas Mann, 2013’s Beautiful Creatures) narrates his own story in flashback; it’s up to the audience how objective we find what he has to say.  Nervously pacing around his bedroom full of angst, Greg wonders how he can even begin.  Greg is a high school outcast by choice.  He cleverly navigates his way between the routine identifiable groups like the jocks and the stoners all the way down to sub-groups including the Jewish girl clique and the lone white rapper.  Accepted at the fringes of all groups yet technically part of none, Greg bobs and weaves his way through the hallways and the dreaded cafeteria avoiding any and all eye contact seeking the safety of the office of the school’s hip history teacher (Jon Bernthal, 2014’s Fury).

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Greg and his best friend Earl (RJ Cyler), whom he refers to as his co-worker, spend their lunches absorbing Werner Herzog and the other required peculiar pantheon of filmheads.  In their off hours away from school, Greg and Earl create their own Criterion Collection knock-offs such as “A Sockwork Orange,” “Death in Tennis,” and “2:58pm Cowboy”.  Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon assumes we can figure out on our own which title mocks which film classic.  During a few hilarious montages, we watch the boys’ quick filmography and pat ourselves on our collective backs with how many titles we figure out.

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I have not forgotten the third part of the film’s title, The Dying Girl.  Greg’s mom (Connie Britton) forces him to leave the house and spend time with Rachel (Olivia Cooke) who was just diagnosed with leukemia.  Horrified Greg wants nothing to do with a sick girl he barely knows and Rachel certainly does not desire Greg’s reluctant attention.  Here is where writer Jesse Andrews, adapting the screenplay from his own novel, shines different.  In Hollywood formulaic hands, these two high schoolers would engage in 90 minutes worth of ‘will they or won’t they’ awkward near kisses and fumbles.

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There is no meet cute between Greg and Rachel; no tumbling textbooks in the hallway as their eyes meet in slow motion.  Their formal intro is forced and awkward as are most intros when you’re 17.  Greg merely labeled Rachel as one of the girls in Jewish girl group number two.  Sarcasm and bad jokes are Greg’s best friends as he and Rachel choppily hit it off and eventually look forward to their daily visits.  Throttle back there those of you yearning for puppy dog eyes and first dates.  We’re not here for love.  We’re here for a reality check.  

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Shuffling around downstairs with an always more than half full white wine glass, Rachel’s mom (Molly Shannon, 2011’s Bad Teacher) can only smile and praise Greg’s fortitude lest she break down into a puddle of tears and sobs omnipresently lurking around every other word.  Greg’s dad (Nick Offerman, 2014’s 22 Jump Street) isn’t around to issue sage wisdom either.  Floating around the house in his bathrobe and always with a plate of a borderline noxious food, he plays stone-faced comic relief whenever Greg runs into any emotions too heavy to handle.  Extending a plate and muttering just the words “pig feet” does wonders to snap the tension and bring us back into the comedy side of dramedy.  

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Shot with a camera on speed as it spins round the room and turns sideways on the street, cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung broke free of his stoic and creepy camera work he employed in 2013’s Stoker.  Me and Earl and the Dying Girl seems destined to follow in the footsteps of Little Miss Sunshine as the little indie that could as it attracts momentum from mainstream audiences toward awards season.  However, I mostly remember the quirk, the one-dimensional supporting characters, and the sobering ending which finally gets round to attacking the tear ducts you thought were safe.  Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a breath of fresh air in the sick teenager genre, but it didn’t break all of the chains.  

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