ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL is only the second feature film by director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, and a drastic departure from his 2014 horror thriller fare THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN. It was bought by Fox Searchlight and Indian Paintbrush for a figure reported to be close to a cool $12 million at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where it won both the Grand Jury and Dramatic Audience Award. That sure is some big dollar changing hands for the rights to this film, and what, you may be wondering, does it do to justify this kind of asking price? Well, it’s spinning a lot of plates all at the same time, but the heart of the matter is this: remarkably few, if any, come falling down.
Greg Gaines (Thomas Mann) is your average senior year, high school student. He has mastered the art of assimilation within all the tribes in his high school – purely for the ease of anonymity and lack of conflict that this brings him. He and his childhood friend Earl (RJ Cyler) are enthusiastic, self-motivated “Sweders”: imagine fan fiction meets pop-culture film recreations on incredibly small budgets (check out Michel Gondry’s BE KIND REWIND for extended examples of this art-form). One day Greg’s mum (Connie Britton) informs him that his high school friend Rachel (Olivia Cooke) has leukaemia, and advises him to spend some time with her. The film has a delicate balancing act to contend with, and the serious subject matter interplays with a comic and ever-so endearing charm. Gomez-Rejon manages to instil a sincere gravitas to the subject of leukaemia, as did Jerry Zaks in his excellent 1996 drama MARVIN’S ROOM. He mixes this with the breakout appeal of Jason Reitman’s much-loved JUNO and the teenage audience appeal of Josh Boone’s THE FAULT IN OUR STARS. If this seems like a heady mix of cinematic influences, don’t let it put you off – it really succeeds in endearing its audience towards the three main protagonists in the film.
The team that Gomez-Rejon has assembled here is collaborative cinematic gold.
The Sweded films provide laugh-out-loud moments in a film you don’t necessarily expect to find so amusing. If you thought Werner Herzog narrating the start to PENGUINS OF THE MADAGASCAR was funny, Thomas Mann is ready and waiting for the next Herzog-off with the man himself. This is a cine-literate film, with a recurring location being the arthouse section of a local independent film store. It’s very hard not to be immediately aware of the ingenious cinematography from Chung-hoon Chung, who is sure to give GRAVITY and BIRDMAN’s Oscar-winning cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, a run for his money in years to come. Topping this off, you have Brian Eno’s occasionally chirpy, often minimalist and melancholy score. The team that Gomez-Rejon has assembled here is near-harmonious: collaborative cinematic gold.
Wes Anderson’s THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL (also bought and distributed by Fox Searchlight and Indian Paintbrush) had such an obvious breakout appeal not only to film students and the Andersonistas that have followed him since BOTTLE ROCKET, but also to the elusive Millennials, aka Generation Y. They aren’t a guaranteed audience, but when they do turn out, it’s en masse. ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL looks set to draw them into cinemas when it is released in the USA in July, and in the UK sometime from late summer. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll want to go out and make a Sweded film yourself. This is quite simply one of those movies you’ll cherish for years to come.