A John Hughes film birthed from the child of Jean-Luc Godard and Wes Anderson, Me & Earl & the Dying Girl, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s cinematic adaptation of Jesse Andrews’ YA novel of the same name, is always on the verge of cloying. However, this Sundance high school dramedy somehow becomes not only conventionally likable and gratifyingly individual in its style, but a deep and warmly crafted love letter to the craft of cinema.
More than this, however, this highly confident and well-tuned teenage tale joins the likes of The Spectacular Now as one of the best coming-of-age sagas of the new generation and is an extraordinarily satisfying effort posed to find itself as a new-age classic. It’s more than a young cinephile’s dream, however. Gomez-Rejon’s sophomore film also hits all the notes general moviegoers desire when they go to the movies in the first place. But beyond its technical suave and well-guided emotions, it’s simply stunning how much this movie resonates despite its abrasive style and on-the-nose commentary. As told from the off-kilter vision of a loner raised on auteurs and avant-garde foreign films, Me & Earl rings true purely in how in sync it is not only with itself but also its protagonist.
That protagonist is Greg (Thomas Mann), a shy high school student surviving senior year solely by making himself a social chameleon among his various surrounding “nations,” a.k.a. cliques. His only real ally — or “co-worker,” as he calls him — is Earl (Ronald Cyler II), a monotone speaking, fellow odd duck sharing Greg’s love of Werner Herzog features and other artistic foreign films. When not in class, they spend their time making low-budget knock-offs, with over 42 titles in their filmography including The 400 Bros and Senior Citizen Kane.
Another kinship is formed, however, when Greg’s mother (Connie Britton) forces her son to spend time with nearby H.S. peer Rachel (Olivia Cooke) when she's recently diagnosed with Leukemia. Fond of the unusual little movies he makes and his mature sensibilities, they grow a quaint friendship together. But don’t go thinking there’s romance afoot. For as we're told over and over again, this is not your typical love story, or even a love story at all. Me & Earl bares more resemblance to 50/50 than it does to The Fault in Our Stars.
Because Gomez-Rejon, as stated before, holds the technical skill to excel in his vision, there’s a free-flowing vibrancy and continuously displayed wit to his entire endeavor. Even when the movie — clearly a product of Sundance filmmaking — gets a little too cutesy or a little too twee, Andrews’ adapted screenplay or Gomez-Rejon’s ever-confident hand keep this all enjoyably bouncy while ever potent. It’s a movie simply sublime to soak in, as you watch with eager hopes to see where Me & Earl pushes itself visually and aesthetically.
Cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung, who also shot Chan-wook Park films like Stoker and Oldboy, continuously invigorates this suburban feature with a rich display of likable offbeat shots and other enjoyable technical quirks. It fits Greg’s weird perception of the world, where high-tech shots marvel and zoom in on the weird details of this traditional backdrop. And even though Me & Earl & the Dying Girl contains all-so-many clichés of the YA adaptation genre — like a sarcastic voice-over, briskly atypical editing and teenagers talking above their years — the full-forced sincerity wins it out in addition to its technical stride and individual sensibilities.
Plus, it makes my lovely Pittsburgh location distinct, yet separates it from the high school romances and coming-of-age tales of late filmed here like The Perks of Being a Wallflower and the aforementioned The Fault in Our Stars. It also serves an oddly fitting, and unintentional, capper to the unplanned spiritual trilogy of YA novels of endearing weepers with loner leads filmed in this Pennsylvania backdrop. And much like those movies, the performances from the cast all shine and gracefully elevate the emotional stakes need to make Me & Earl compelling.
Mann provides enough deadpan honesty to make his Greg work, but it’s really Cooke whom radiates in her transformative turn. Also, future Punisher himself Jon Bernthal gives a fun and memorable supporting turn as history teacher Mr. McCarthy, while Britton also provides a nicely subdued portrayal. The very underused Molly Shannon as Rachel’s distressed mom Denise, additionally, has some nicely dark comedic moments. Although her character is never quite naturally placed into the narrative and, once or twice, becomes a tad too broad to this movie’s well-being.
A celebration of the Criterion Collection as it is to life and its beautiful little oddities, however, Me & Earl & the Dying Girl is outstanding not only in how it vividly captures its own internal groove but how it also finds real heart, humor and sorrow despite this. It’s a feature most only dream to make, and one which feels as though it could only come from the mind of a film student daydreamer. For how hard it tries to sell its vision, when it does win you over, there’s an endlessly enthralling wonder to it all. All in the way the youth could only really think possible and the visionaries only try to see and, for a movie about death, there’s a lot of life in this charmer.