Me and Earl and the Dying Girl was the hit at Sundance garnishing both the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize. The film’s log line is “a little friendship never hurt anyone.” That thought goes a long way since Greg (Thomas Mann) is the ‘me’ in the story, a boy who’s shy and socially inept which actually makes him super smart, or as least as smart as an awkward teenage boy can be. His BFF is Earl (R J Cyler) and while most teens are duking it out in the cafeteria, these two are instead filming short parodies of famous classic movies.
But when Greg’s psychologist parents (Nick Offerman and Connie Britton) suggest he befriend Rachel (Olivia Cooke) the dying girl…she has leukemia…he’s not interested, but goes along anyway.
As the movie suggests, this is where the film might turn into a love story…where the two become super close and fall in love and she dies in his arms. But it’s not that film. It’s the opposite of all that is The Fault in our Stars. The girl, Rachel, however plays her role well, that vague distant look of facing her own mortality come to life. And she does use her dying as leverage to get Greg to apply to Pittsburgh State College in order to get a life. The very one she’ll be robbed of.
The movie still contains the high school bully, the babe, and the usual suspects, but it also includes the doting and emotional mother of the dying girl (Molly Shannon) who does a fantastic job dealing with the proposed guilt and loss of a child. Or as she says, “I protected my girl from growing up too quickly” but couldn’t protect her from cancer.
The story isn’t in the league of Fox Searchlight’s other hits (Little Miss Sunshine, Slumdog Millionaire) or as crafty and different as The Kids are Allright, an early summer hit that went on to Oscar nominations, but it does do an interesting thing….
As large as a small film can be, it taps into the teenage boy psyche. It’s polarizing and at times self-serving, but in the very end it turns explosive and generous. I suspect that’s when the ‘me’ character finally grows up. ♚ ♛ 1/2