Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

This is the review that tells you about a new film that doesn’t suck. In fact it’s exceptionally good, but where do I start? Do I tell you about the Sundance Film Festival awards it has won (Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award) and the enthusiastic audience responses, or should I just tell you to go see it and be wonderfully surprised and moved?

It’s true that judging by the title, the film will make you smile, feel like laughing and sad at the same time. This assessment is not far off, in fact beneath all the funny feel-good stuff lays a raw honesty and intense personal experience that strikes deep into the heart.

Greg Gains played by Thomas Mann, a teenager with commitment issues, narrates the story of the worst time of his life, and the best. He’s an awkward kid who dreads high school social life and tries his best to blend in without being noticed. 

Living with his parents on the outskirts of sub-urban Pittsburgh, Greg is raised on a diet of obscure foreign films thanks to his eccentric father. When his classmate Rachel (Olivia Cooke) is diagnosed with Leukemia, Greg’s mother nags and guilts him into spending time with her to show that he is not the insensitive anti-social creep that he pretends to be.

When he’s not avoiding people, Greg and his buddy Earl (RJ Cyler) secretly make horrible parodies of classic films for their own enjoyment. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a festival favorite because it makes reference to so many classic foreign films. Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams (1982), a documentary about the making of Werner Herzog's jungle epic Fitzcarraldo (1982) is especially singled out with hilarious effect. 

Like the kids in Son of Rambow (2007), Greg and Earl enjoy making fun of their favorite cult classics by videotaping themselves with improvised costumes and dialogue. And like Oliver Tate in Submarine (2010) Greg finds himself ill prepared to deals with the distress of spending a lot of time with a girl and dealing with emotional issues relating to death and terminal illness.

Gradually, as Greg and Rachel spend more time together, even through the chemo treatments, their clumsy friendship grows. Reluctantly Greg and Earl decide to put their film making talents to use to produce a movie for Rachel in hopes that it will make her, if not better, at least temporarily forget about her dire situation. But making the film proves more difficult than expected as Greg must now confront his feelings for Rachel.

Based on the novel by Jesse Andrews who also wrote the screenplay, this charming coming-of-age tale with a powerful message has a truthful voice that feels authentic, relevant and in touch with current adolescence.

The sometimes unusual framing by Korean cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung emphasizes the awkwardness and the uncomfortable situations the characters find themselves in.

In the competent skillful hands of director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, who has worked as a second unit director for films including Babel (2006), assisting celebrated directors such as Martin Scorsese and Alejandro González Iñárritu, he elevates the quirky coming-of-age comedy material to unexpected level of emotional depth and insight. 

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl marks the arrival of a major new talent in cinema. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon has put his considerable talent and heart into a personal film experience not to be missed and is already garnering Oscar buzz.

JP

Clouds of Sils Maria / While We're Young

As our generation ages so also are the filmmakers and actors from that generation, who are becoming pre-occupied with making films that reflect on the state of our lives as we grapple with our changing bodies and the world around us. 

Two films of note that deal with our need to stay in touch with our ever changing society while also dealing with the ever pressing sense of our legacy and the limited time available to achieve our ambitions, are Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) and While We’re Young (2015).

Both of these excellent films are about aging artists struggling with the loss of their fading youth and careers. In both stories the aging artists, a well-known film actress in Clouds of Sils Maria and a documentary filmmaker in While We’re Young, are working on difficult late career projects and become bogged down with doubts while striving to recover a sense of excitement and joy they seem to have lost over the years. 

In each case they reach for the advice and influence of much younger people to try and understand the current trends in culture and revive their sense of passion for their own projects. At first this strategy seems to work, giving them a new sense of exuberance and vitality. 

While We're Young:
In the case of Noah Bombauch’s While We’re Young, Josh and his wife Cornelia, played by Ben Stiller – The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) and Naomi Watts – Birdman (2014), try to reinvent themselves while under the influence of a younger 20 something couple Jamie and Darby, played by Adam Driver – Tracks (2014), This is Where I Leave You (2014) and Amanda Seyfried – Mama Mia! (2008), who are into all things vintage. 

While the middle aged childless couple try to stay relevant with their latest electronic gadgets, the younger couple are obsessed with doing things the old fashioned way, discovering with fascination the music and old-school tech of the 70s and 80s, which of course is ironic since these are the very things our middle aged couple have discarded over the years as new improved tech has come to replaced them, but they now become nostalgic when faced with a blast from their past. 

They are drawn into the lives of their new hipster friends, joining them for fun spontaneous events around New York City that are decidedly non-digital and lament the loss of a simpler way of life. It’s like a Woody Allen film lamenting how much the world has changed from life not so long ago since the digital age changed everything with instant knowledge at our fingertips, but a lack of face to face human interactions. 

While We’re Young is a pleasing and poignant comedy in equal measure, and a welcome return to Ben Stiller’s more subdued and earnest roles like the one he played in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, but still retaining his trademark humor that relishes in awkward situations.

Clouds of Sils Maria:
In Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) a celebrated actress Maria Enders, played by Juliette Binoche – Chocolat (2000), Godzilla (2014), relies on her young assistant Valentine, played by Kristen Stewart – Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), to find new relevance and inspiration in a role from a play that launched her career in her youth. 

At first she dismisses the idea but Valentine eventually convinces Maria to revisit the play performing an older character suited to her current age opposite the young character that made her famous so many years earlier.

It’s a thoughtful and intimate behind the scenes look at the philosophical preparation and the tedious rehearsal process involved in building a character leading up to a convincing performance on stage. 

Maria discovers that playing this older person strikes a little too close to home and is proving more challenging than she was prepared to deal with. She must now come to terms with her past, reliving the memories of an earlier time in her life while finding new meaning in the play and in her own life. 

The film also exposes some of the crazy and annoying situations that celebrities must contend with while being hounded by paparazzi, making it difficult to maintain a semblance of a normal life. 

Kristen Stuart is superb and gives such a natural subtle performance that she draws us in and transfixes us with her every word and gesture. She is the first American actress to have won France’s prestigious Cesar Award for her supporting role in this film.

Clouds of Sils Maria and While We’re Young are intriguing studies into the new challenges facing our generation, not only artists and filmmakers, but all of us who feel time and life slipping away, and how we will face the future while reconciling with our past.

JP