Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. As I left my screening of "Me and Earl and The Dying Girl," I was wondering what all the fuss was about. Don't get me wrong. This is stylishly made. It is well acted. I just didn't have any great emotional churn inside of me when it was over.
Maybe a large part of the problem is that I have seen this plot probably 40 or 50 times before. It's so familiar that I knew exactly how these story arcs would play out twenty minutes before they did. They're as predictable as Christmas Eve on December 24. I even knew that the flagrant lie the main character tells in his voice over narration was just that...a fib. If movie plots are going to be this telegraphed, you don't need writers. Just call Western Union.
This is another "I am a weird-do and don't fit in anywhere in my high school" film. The narrator...Me, as it would be be...works hard to be connected to all the key cliques and splinter groups in school even if he doesn't fit any of their profiles. His best friend is Earl, perhaps the most stereotyped Black character of film since the days of Willie Best. The two of them together make sock puppet versions of famous classic movies. Like "A Sockwork Orange." And their rendition of "Vertigo" called "Where'd He Go." Uh-huh. Meanwhile, you see some of these films and the claymation and stop action photography is so reminiscent of the work of filmmaker George Pal during the 1950s. The only difference was that his stuff is good.
Of course, those two meet up with Rachel, who's got leukemia and looking pale almost from her first frame. There is friendship. There is pathos. There is everything that you totally expect from Screenwriting 1o1.
Don't get me wrong. There is a lot that's interesting about this movie. Hey, any film that deals with the crap we all have to put up with in high school is aces with me. But, while compelling at times, "Me and Earl and The Dying Girl" falls victim to overkill at the hands of the director. Less should be more here. But, indeed, Me is way too weird, Earl is way too stereotyped, and the Dying Girl is way too sick. A hammer is used when a small chamois cloth would have been better.
And, in case, you thought all the weirdness stopped with the kids here, please be assured that the parents depicted are no more normal. I give some exception, however, to the always welcome Molly Shannon as the mom of the girl who's at the door of death. But even she comes off with too many quirks and ticks. Hey, I know she can be normal. I sat across from her once while flying from NY to LA.
I actually wanted to like this movie as much as my recommending cohorts did. But, try as it may, the film succumbs at the end. There is just too, too much about...well, too, too much.
LEN'S RATING: Two stars.
Dinner last night: Stir fry pork with vegetables in garlic sauce.
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