Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

A must-see — and one of the best films of the year.

It's a fine line between being gratingly self-conscious and really smart; more times than not, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl comes out on the winning side of that equation.

This film geek's dream of a movie pulls the ground out from under you, but stays smartass to the end. Sweet.

High-school students have plenty of growing pains to offload, and Gomez-Rejon clearly knows what makes them tick. His film is at once buzzy, fun and confronting.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl treats a serious subject with wackadoodle humor that is endearingly contagious. It’s tender, clever, wise and highly recommended.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl succumbs to the same cloying too-cuteness and solipsism that often plague its glib and sentimental genre. But those limitations are leavened by the film’s lively, ultimately affecting flourishes and sprightly voice.

Gomez-Rejon has erected a gleaming shrine to adolescent narcissism.

A tragic, beautiful, uplifting testament to youth, friendship, and maturity. Endlessly powerful and hilarious. The acting is fantastic and the writing is clever. See this movie now!

Was an okay movie, expected it to be a lot better honestly. One thing I liked is that it wasn't the typical love story, fall in love with someone dying trope that so many other sick type movies have done, they were just friends & forced to hang out with each other.

A very well done little film where all the actors do a good job. However I have to say I expected a little bit more. Towards the end there´s kind of a twist that I didn´t see coming, which should be good, but I couldn´t really enjoy it. The tone of the film is too sad overall with no special moments to compensate it.

I think that Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a good movie.. I just didn't like it. I found the performances in the movie fairly dry to start out with but they did get a lot better as the film went on. I also felt like a film with heavy emotional plot like this would have more character development, sure the characters were complex but by the end of the film I still didn't really feel like I knew them. I think this is more of a hipster film and I'm sure there are going to be many people who find something they like about this movie I just wasn't satisfied. I really found several of the jokes kind of lame as well. I like the avoidance of clichés in this film which is difficult with teen cancer film, but I'd take 50/50 over this movie any day, but that's just my opinion.

Though I hate to limit myself, regarding genres of movies, after last week’s “Dope” and this week’s “Me And Earl And The Dying Girl” (from here on refereed to as “Earl”) each about 3 nerdy/geek kids and each, seemingly, critic’s darlings, I think I will add teenage movies about nerds to my list with westerns, horror, violent, raunchy boy/man, comic strip and most sci-fi pictures I will avoid seeing. (Hey, I am looking forward to “Magic Mike XXL” next week, what can I tell you?) In the case of “Earl” and “Dope” I think there is definitely a very wide generation gap. The last time I saw my teens was 60 years ago and though I enjoyed “The Fault Is In Our Stars” last year it was more of a drama than teenage angst. There is some humor in “Earl” regarding the movies that Earl (RJ Cyler) and Geg (the ‘Me’-- Thomas Mann) make redoing classics, especially the titles they give their films. Olivia Cooke is certainly endearing as ‘the dying girl, Rachel, while Greg grows up over the course of the film and Earl is a wise young man before his time. Molly Shannon as Rachel’s single mother and Connie Britton as Greg’s mother, both overbearing parents, along with Nick Offerman as his beatnik father---by the way Earl doesn’t have any parents and lives with his older brother who threatens Greg with telling him his dog will bite off his face--and Jon Bernthal as a teacher and, more or less, a guidance counselor to the boys, are sort of annoying adults you will find in most pictures about teenagers though the latter less than the others. “Earl” is being sold as a comedy, a sort of John Hughes movie with lessons to be learned. Greg is constantly reminding the audience--there is a lot of voice over-- that Rachel doesn’t die and there are screen titles telling the passing of time and where we are at in the story. As a social misfit Thomas Mann carries the film and RJ Cyer is his effective sidekick and shows his many sides. Olivia Cooke is endearing as the dying girl who has leukemia and is very instrumental is helping Greg grow up. The direction by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon is all over the place, somewhat like the movies the boys make, while the screenplay by Jesse Andrews, who wrote the best selling novel, is low key without trying to tell the audience how to feel. The director of photography shows off Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, almost always in a glow of light, even in the night scenes. I laughed once and that was the boys film take-off of “Midnight Cowboy” with the “Everybody’s Talking” theme song and, for a comedy, laughing once is not a good endorsement. I left the theatre wondering whatever happened to the girl who got stood up on prom night--maybe that’s the sequel?