Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015, D: Gomez-Rejon)
06-15-15, 07:35 AM
#1
Moderator
Thread Starter
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015, D: Gomez-Rejon)
High schooler Greg, who spends most of his time making parodies of classic movies with his co-worker Earl, finds his outlook forever altered after befriending a classmate who has just been diagnosed with cancer.
Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon and written by Jesse Andrews, based on Andrews' 2012 debut novel of the same name. The film stars Thomas Mann, Olivia Cooke, Ronald Cyler II, Jon Bernthal, and Nick Offerman.
Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon and written by Jesse Andrews, based on Andrews' 2012 debut novel of the same name. The film stars Thomas Mann, Olivia Cooke, Ronald Cyler II, Jon Bernthal, and Nick Offerman.
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06-15-15, 07:41 AM
#2
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015, D: Gomez-Rejon)
This won the Sundance Audience Award. It did OK business in limited release this past weekend, grossing $210k in 15 theaters for a $14,000/theater average.
Currently sitting at 82% with 68 reviews (56 fresh, 12 rotten) on rottentomatoes with an average rating of 7.8/10 and a 92% audience score. The director last directed The Town That Dreaded Sundown remake.
Currently sitting at 82% with 68 reviews (56 fresh, 12 rotten) on rottentomatoes with an average rating of 7.8/10 and a 92% audience score. The director last directed The Town That Dreaded Sundown remake.
06-15-15, 07:35 PM
#3
Re: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015, D: Gomez-Rejon)
I saw the film today. It starts off cute, quirky, funny, but it just doesn't sustain itself. It kept veering into JUNO territory, i.e. everyone was too glib and clever for their own good. Although I'm sure a lot of indie films with high school-age characters are like that these days. I just don't see a lot of them. And these kids are way too knowledgeable about classic films for high school students. Sure, I'd be happy if every team of white and black student filmmakers in real life worshipped Kurosawa and Kubrick and Godard, but I just don't see it and I didn't buy it here. The black sidekick was just too much of a movie construction, kind of like Morgan Freeman for the high school set. And where'd he get that southern accent in Pittsburgh?
The two lead actors were good, in difficult roles to pull off, but something just didn't feel right to me about so much of it. On another movie forum, a regular classified the girl as a manic pixie dream girl, although I'm not familiar enough with that character type to confirm that here. There must be a real story somewhere of a high school boy's budding relationship with a girl with leukemia that doesn't have to resort to cliché or film school references to please audiences. There may have been films based on it, too, but they probably fell through the cracks because they were too honest for Sundance.
The two lead actors were good, in difficult roles to pull off, but something just didn't feel right to me about so much of it. On another movie forum, a regular classified the girl as a manic pixie dream girl, although I'm not familiar enough with that character type to confirm that here. There must be a real story somewhere of a high school boy's budding relationship with a girl with leukemia that doesn't have to resort to cliché or film school references to please audiences. There may have been films based on it, too, but they probably fell through the cracks because they were too honest for Sundance.
