“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” is the film adaptation of the popular YA novel. The movie won both the Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Clearly, those voting groups were made up of die-hard indie lovers who easily embrace quirky. However, when you look at “Me and Earl” as a movie and not a demonstration of low budget, arthouse filmmaking, it comes off as an all-too cliche and cookie-cutter summer dramedy.
Thomas Mann (who co-starred with Victoria Justice in the worst movie of 2012 – “Fun Size”) plays Greg. He’s a high school senior looking to finish-out his high school career doing what he’s always done – flying under the radar, staying out of trouble, and getting along with, but not getting close to, every stereotypical group of students. The only friend (or “co-worker” as Greg puts it because he doesn’t want to admit he has a legitimate friend) is Earl. Their “thing” is making film parodies of classic Hollywood’s movies, though they do it in secret and don’t show their films to anyone.
Greg’s life changes when he learns a girl in his school named Rachel has been diagnosed with Leukemia. Greg and Rachel hardly know each other, but Greg’s mother insists that Greg visit Rachel so she has some company during this difficult time (Greg is far too selfish to think of doing this himself). A friendship forms between the two, but as narrator Greg informs us on multiple occasions, this is far from a typical romance and they are not boyfriend and girlfriend. In the Hollywood version, these teens fall for each other and learn lessons about life and love until she dies.
Thankfully this story avoids that predictable path. But sadly, it goes in a different, but equally disappointing direction. Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon bluntly borrows from indie king Wes Anderson throughout the entire film, particularly in the quirky heavy first half, packing “Me and Earl” with weird camera angles, snippets of stop-motion animation and on the screen titles. This movie suffers from “Too Cute for its Own Good Indie Disease.” Gomez-Rejon also forces way too many attempts at humor into the story, especially from over-the-top supporting cast members Nick Offerman and Molly Shannon.
Greg and Earl’s movies (including knock-offs of “A Clockwork Orange” and “Midnight Cowboy”) got me thinking of Michel Gondry’s 2008 indie comedy “Be Kind Rewind”, in which Jack Black and Mos Def made their own versions of such classics as “Driving Miss Daisy” and “Ghostbusters”. The parodies actually had more purpose and relevance in that film. Here they’re simply a plot device.
“Me and Earl” is a difficult film to enjoy mainly because, for the first 95% of the movie, Greg is a really unlikable character. It’s his story, but it’s impossible to feel anything for him. And as Rachel deals with her chemo treatments, it’s impossible not to feel sorry for her. But the script provides no emotional surprises or impact. Cancer is a touchy subject to tackle on film, and there are a few very appropriately serious scenes that deal with the challenges and frustrations of the disease. These are really the only effective moments of “Me and Earl”, which lacks the power and insight of last year’s entry in the Teen Dying of Cancer genre – “The Fault in Our Stars”.
On The Official LCJ Report Card, “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” gets a C-.
Running Time: 105 min.