Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (2015)
Some things about Me and Earl and the Dying Girl that suck (as it would probably say) …
(1) The title. Nowadays, when something is called ‘Me and … ‘, it’s a warning that phoney, wry self-deprecation is in the air, even if the film turns out to have good qualities too (examples: Me and You and Everyone We Know, Me and Orson Welles). In this particular case, the internal rhyme is all the more ominous.
(2) The division of the narrative into arch chapter headings beginning with the words ‘The part … ‘ – including ‘The part where I do drugs without knowing it’ and ‘The part where I get into my first fight’. These may not be verbatim but the culminating chapter heading – ‘The part after all the other parts’ – is. And, as if this weren’t enough …
(3) … the succession of legends on the screen indicating ‘Day [insert number] of doomed friendship’.
(4) The-part-where the voiceover of Greg, the narrator and ‘Me’ of the title, says, ‘If this was a touching, romantic little story, she’d die in the end’. He is referring to Rachel, who goes to the same high school as Greg and, at the start of the film, has been diagnosed with leukaemia. Greg goes on to tell us (twice) that Rachel doesn’t die. The director, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, and the writer, Jesse Andrews, whose screenplay is based on his own 2012 novel, seem to think that awareness of the conventions of the mawkish generic territory in which they’re operating somehow elevates Me and Earl and the Dying Girl above that territory. The assurances that Rachel survives are also meant to make her eventual demise more heartbreaking – Greg can’t bear to admit the truth of what really happened. In fact, his dissimulation confirms what’s already obvious: Rachel will die but she won’t have died in vain. She will have taught Greg that life is a precious thing and that he needs to change his ‘invisible, detached, self-hating’ (Rachel’s words) ways.
(5) The regular intervention of snippets of humorous and/or sentimental animation and extracts from the short films made by Greg and his friend Earl, mostly parody-ettes of movie classics. They include ‘A Box-o’ ‘lips – Wow!’ (you may need to say that one aloud), ‘A Sockwork Orange, ‘2.48 pm Cowboy’ (and many more …) It’s no surprise that Greg’s cinephilia has been enough to melt the hearts of plenty of critics who’ve given Me and Earl glowing reviews.
(6) The soundtrack. This comprises – as well as (of course) excerpts from several famous movie scores – original music by Brian Eno and Nico Muhly. I’m not sure who is responsible for the cutely eccentric melody that is the worst bit.
(7) The film’s ideas of ugliness. When his mother first encourages him to spend time with the dying girl, Greg tells Rachel how bad he thinks he looks, referring to his ‘groundhog face’. In response, Rachel says, ‘You can’t possibly think that’; and you can only agree. A teenager may well have an unduly negative self-image but Thomas Mann, who plays Greg, is better looking than most of the other high-school boys in evidence. (He slightly resembles the young Jeff Bridges.) More important, Rachel loses her hair during chemotherapy and weeps that she’s ‘ugly’ and that none of her visitors will tell her that. The hair loss is an advance in realism from Ali MacGraw’s fashion-model leukaemia sufferer in Love Story all those years ago and Olivia Cooke, who plays Rachel, communicates the girl’s distress. But, since Cooke has a very pretty face, there’s no possibility of Rachel’s being ugly in the eye of the beholder – of her seeming ‘a beautiful person’ in spite of her appearance. Thomas Mann, Olivia Cooke and R J Cyler, who plays Earl, are all evidently talented; at least the success of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl may lead to their using their talents in something more worthwhile.
(8) The characterisation of the parents. Greg’s fairly conventional mom (Connie Britton), his asocial, offal-eating father (Nick Offerman) and Rachel’s wrenchingly demonstrative mother (Molly Shannon) are ingredients weighed out to supply precise amounts of kookiness and ‘truthfulness’ that won’t unbalance the total recipe.
(9) Greg’s family’s cat is, however, underused.
(10) The film’s complete self-confidence.
17 September 2015
