Movie Review: "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" (Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, 2015)

AT DEATH’S DOOR by Bennett Campbell Ferguson

Above: Olivia Cooke, Thomas Mann, and R.J. Cyler in a scene from "Me and Earl." 
Photo ©Fox Searchlight Pictures

Towards the final scene of “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” a chirpy teen sob story from Fox Searchlight, I could make out a chorus of sniffles in the upscale Eugene cinema where I saw the film.  People were crying, and I didn’t blame them.  “Me and Earl” may be many things—quirky, ironic, irritating—but it certainly stabs with sadness.

            Not so for Greg (Thomas Mann), the movie’s sneeringly self-obsessed “hero.”  The kind of smug outsider that could only be played by a will-be marquee king, Greg is a high school senior, and much to his consternation—he’s already cringing at the looming unknown that is college.  Also, his friend Rachel (Olivia Cooke) has leukemia.

            The scene where Greg and his parents (Connie Britton and Nick Offerman) hear about Rachel’s diagnosis is chillingly incisive.  “Wow.  That sucks,” Greg dopily offers.  Indeed, it “sucks” so much the Greg and his mom and his dad all stiffly come together for a three-pronged embrace, falling into the roles of “concerned friends and neighbors” with disgusting apathy. 

            Nevertheless, Greg does climb the staircase that leads to Rachel’s pillow-covered bedroom. At first, he does so only because his mother glimmers at the prospect of having an angel instead of an offspring.  But as Greg lumbers up those steps day after day, long after his mother’s edict has passed, you feel that there’s something more afoot.  Rachel may meet Greg’s peculiar brand of humor (sample: his imitation of a soulful “polar bear moan”) with impassive disgust.  Yet little by little, she starts to smile.

            As Rachel, Ms. Cooke gives a formidable and tender performance.  But even she can’t make you believe that anyone would be won over by Greg’s snarky sense of humor.  Really, who is this slimy excuse for a kid?  He admits outright to Rachel that his mother forced him to be her friend, spits venom into the steady eyes of his only real friend, the Earl of title (R.J. Cyler), and ceaselessly whines about how everyone tells him that he’s handsome.  Oh, poor baby.

            Of course, many movie masterworks are beset by insufferable protagonists.  But like Greg, “Me and Earl” is a tonic that leaves a grating rash.  Adapting Jesse Andrews’ novel (and working from a screenplay by Mr. Andrews himself), director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon deploys Greg’s cocky voiceover throughout, riddling the film’s characters with snide asides.  “That was really mean!” Madison (Katherine C. Hughes) chides when Greg likens a Goth kid to a Tyrannosaurus Rex.  Yet the unmistakable phoniness of Madison’s reprimand clues us to side with Greg on this one.  

            And that’s not the worst of it.  Visually, “Me and Earl” is as bland as toast without jelly (save for a long take where Rachel bulges across the screen and Greg is shrunk to a tiny speck).  Yet the film’s most miserable transgressions are locked in its sentimental narrative.  Should I spoil the movie?  I’d better not (even though there’s hardly anything worth spoiling).  But I will say this—twice, a character in the film tells us something about how the story concludes.  As it turns out, he lied.

            Why the lie?  Perhaps Mr. Gomez-Rejon thought it was clever.  But it’s really a betrayal of our trust, just as the film’s focus on Greg is a betrayal of Rachel.  “Me and Earl” is a film about a sweet, kind girl who has cancer.  But in the end, her story is nothing more than a stage for a narcissistic teenage boy’s false redemption.  Even when Rachel lies speechless and bed-bound, her anguish is reduced to a backbeat for Greg’s tears and a light show projected over the keening electro-music of Nico Muhly and Brian Eno. 

Never mind that a young woman as dying.  The guys in the room need to remind us that, yeah, they’re pretty deep.