Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015)
Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Greg is coasting through senior year of high school as anonymously as possible, avoiding social interactions like the plague while secretly making spirited, bizarre films with Earl, his only friend. But both his anonymity and friendship threaten to unravel when his mother forces him to befriend a classmate with leukemia.
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The exception is director Werner Herzog: he and his work are more thoroughly incorporated into the film, with Greg and Earl watching Burden Of Dreams; Greg channelling Herzog's voice when he's toying with the idea of writing a personal essay for college admission.
His only friend is a kid named Earl (RJ Cyler), who he refers to more as a “co-worker” given that they make short films together and avoid the high school social scene by hanging out in the office of their history teacher ( Jon Bernthal ), watching “ Burden of Dreams .”
Though Me And Earl And The Dying Girl is a sop to film buffs, with references ranging from Burden Of Dreams to Taxi Driver and beyond, the nearest point of comparison for its cancer story is The Fault In Our Stars , which is less hip, but more honest and moving about the “grenade”-like effect that caring for a terminal child can have on those around her.
Criterion box art bounces off the walls including the cover of Fassbinder’s “Berlin Alexanderplatz,” publisher Dalkey Archive is referenced, and clips from movies like Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows,” Werner Herzog’s “My Best Fiend” and “Aguirre, The Wrath Of God,” Les Blank’s “Burden Of Dreams” and the unmotivated track right away from Travis Bickle on a payphone in “Taxi Driver.”
Though Me And Earl And The Dying Girl is a sop to film buffs, with references ranging from Burden Of Dreams to Taxi Driver and beyond, the nearest point of comparison for its cancer story is The Fault In Our Stars , which is less hip, but more honest and moving about the “grenade”-like effect that caring for a terminal child can have on those around her.
En términos visuales el filme es una concesión para los amantes del cine al mostrar constantemente una serie de referencias cinematográficas que incluyen a Werner Herzog, François Truffaut, Taxi Driver, A Clockwork Orange, entre otros; es un regalo bellamente envuelto y construido a partir de encuadres simétricos y locaciones coloridas que recuerdan el diseño de arte de los filmes de Wes Anderson.
La leucemia prodigiosa prodiga, sobre todo, inagotables paralelismos extraordinarios, sabrosísimos y más que excéntricos con el cine de arte local y europeo (el cine “extranjero” de Coppola, Scorsese, Malle y Bergman), ahíto de tipos solitarios y violentos con los cuales identificarse, tanto al nivel de las 42 falsamente naïves microcintas atribuidas al desatado protagonista (ese Senior Citizen Kane, ese Apocalipsis ahora vuelto Épocas cursis ahora, esa Seventh Seal) como los producidos por el montaje propiamente ficcional (ese fondo de Taxi Driver 76 denunciando el verdadero subtexto agresivo del héroe confeso, ese padre identificado con Aguirre, la ira de dios 72 en el instante de visionarlo, esa deflacionaria culminación caritativa alternando con la música-palpitación recóndita del desesperado desconcierto final del chavo enternecedoramente truffautiano de Los 400 golpes 59), pero también la deliciosa imitación salvaje del mamonazo acento avieso de Werner Herzog y la soberana antología d…
They’ve known each other since kindergarten and have channeled a mutual love of film into a series of amateur parodies of various classics (i.e., “2:48pm Cowboy” instead of “Midnight Cowboy”).
I adore the moment where Greg–the main character, who makes terrible homages to classics like Midnight Cowboy, A Clockwork Orange and Breathless (and many, many more of my favorite movies)–is in his room directly above where his parents are fighting about his grades and how he won’t be admitted into college the following year.
This deep affection soon progresses to home-made films with a twist on their favorites: Breathless becomes Breath Less , Peeping Tom now Pooping Tom , Midnight Cowboy is 2:48 Cowboy , etc. It’s the sort of addition that could be insufferably quirky in a bad Michel Gondry movie (you know the one), but here it’s lovingly executed and feels impeccably in tandem with the characters’ awkward personalities.
She’s particularly fond of a takeoff on Rashomon he calls “Monorash” and an outrageous take on Midnight Cowboy titled “2:48 P.M. Cowboy.”
The film uses cinema as a cultural shorthand, flattering people for getting inside jokes about Midnight Cowboy, Apocalpyse Now, Fitzcarraldo, and the like.
“What can you say about a 25-year-old girl who died?” goes the opening narration of the immortal “Love Story” (1970).
This is no The Fault in Our Stars or Love Story.
Of course, in the end, we see Rambo in every remade hero, Love Story in every tale of unrequited affection altered by terminal illness.
The critically approved soundtrack (heavy on Brian Eno), cool casting (Nick Offerman plays Greg's oddball father) and art-house in-jokes (Greg and Earl make spoof-movies with titles like "A Sockwork Orange") seem designed to separate this hip romance from a square old one like "Love Story."
Basada en una novela de Jesse Andrews adaptada por él mismo, Yo, él y Raquel, premio del Público en Sundance, podría ser el Love story de la generación hipster (aquí también hay leucemia), pero es sobre todo un triunfo del tono, de la combinación del drama con la comedia.
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One of the hottest tickets at this year’s Sundance film festival was for a U.S. Dramatic Competition film that entered the event as an under-the-radar offering and ended as the presumptive favorite to win the Grand Jury Prize (and, even more likely, the Audience Award): “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” a gorgeously conceived and executed variation on the teen weepie that recalls “ Rushmore ” and references Werner Herzog while sharing emotional DNA with “ The Fault in Our Stars .”
There are hints of undisputable inspiration in Gomez-Rejon's approachWes Anderson's " Rushmore " and Alexander Payne's " Election " come immediately to mind while watchingbut the filmmaker uses them merely as a jumping-off point for his own uniquely perceptive viewpoint.Greg Gaines (Thomas Mann) is a die-hard cinephile and aspiring director whose 42 home-made films (most of them affectionate movie spoofs) adorn his family's living-room shelves.
Criterion box art bounces off the walls including the cover of Fassbinder’s “Berlin Alexanderplatz,” publisher Dalkey Archive is referenced, and clips from movies like Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows,” Werner Herzog’s “My Best Fiend” and “Aguirre, The Wrath Of God,” Les Blank’s “Burden Of Dreams” and the unmotivated track right away from Travis Bickle on a payphone in “Taxi Driver.”
It’s a remarkably assured con-job — but I’m not sure that the director, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, and the screenwriter, Jesse Andrews (adapting his own novel), haven’t conned themselves into thinking they’ve captured the feel of modern adolescence better than anyone since Truffaut in The 400 Blows.
Instead of the latest date flick, Greg, whose room is decorated with posters of The 400 Blows, likes foreign films that are “confusing and pointless, like life.”
He and Earl grew up watching movies like Werner Herzog 's "Aguirre The Wrath of God", Truffaut's " The 400 Blows ," Powell and Pressberger's "Tales of Hoffmann," and spend their free time as teenagers making their own movies, spoofs of the greats with titles like "The 400 Bros," "The Sockwork Orange," and "2:48 p.m. Cowboy."
True to its title, “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” is first and foremost the story of “me,” the movie’s narrator, Greg Gaines (Thomas Mann), a misfit Pittsburgh high school senior with a passion for classic cinema, as demonstrated by his “Nosferatu” T-shirt, his bedroom poster of Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” (another tale of a misunderstood adolescent) and, especially, his Mad magazine-esque homemade mini-movies.
One of the hottest tickets at this year’s Sundance film festival was for a U.S. Dramatic Competition film that entered the event as an under-the-radar offering and ended as the presumptive favorite to win the Grand Jury Prize (and, even more likely, the Audience Award): “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” a gorgeously conceived and executed variation on the teen weepie that recalls “ Rushmore ” and references Werner Herzog while sharing emotional DNA with “ The Fault in Our Stars .”
The story of a high-school senior forced to befriend a classmate who has just been diagnosed with leukemia, and the sincere, nonsexual connection that forms as a result (sorry, “The Fault in Our Stars,” but there’s no nookie here), this rousing adaptation of Jesse Andrews’ novel is destined not only to connect with young audiences in a big way, but also to endure as a touchstone for its generation.
Stealing many of its visual cues from Wes Anderson and borrowing liberally otherwise from the likes of its fellow recent YA adaptations “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and “The Fault in Our Stars,” “Me and Earl” unquestionably would have starred Michael Cera, had it been made 5 or 6 years earlier.
Though Me And Earl And The Dying Girl is a sop to film buffs, with references ranging from Burden Of Dreams to Taxi Driver and beyond, the nearest point of comparison for its cancer story is The Fault In Our Stars , which is less hip, but more honest and moving about the “grenade”-like effect that caring for a terminal child can have on those around her.
The prospect of a Sundance-wowing indie take on the themes of The Fault in Our Stars or Now Is Good sounds irksome beyond words, but Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s very likable film confounds both expectations and prejudices.
One senses he knows that people are just waiting for these two kids to have a love story akin to The Fault in Our Stars or any other entry in the teen-movie pantheon, so the filmmaker frames shots where Greg and Rachel are on opposite sides of the room as they enjoy some of their most important connecting moments.
It's the kind of quirky, never-happen-in-real-life hobby that makes hardcore film fans salivate, but is really a copycat concept of Be Kind Rewind's "Sweded" movies.
(“Sweding,” if you’ve forgotten, is the art of making charmingly no-budget mini-remakes, a la Jack Black and Mos Def in “Be Kind Rewind.”)
(This, of course, is deliberate catnip to movie fans, and, yes, it does have elements of Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind to it, but with more cerebral material.)
You’ll groan, but pleasurably; they’re clear relatives of the “sweded” movies in Be Kind Rewind, but smarter and more concise.
Greg and Earl spend their time making parody remakes of popular art films of the ‘60s and ‘70s – so yes, the only entertaining thing in the film already formed the premise of a much better movie, “Be Kind Rewind.”
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That's the kind of jokey reference material that diehard movie fans and especially critics ravenously eat up after sitting through horrible to mediocre films day after day, and some of the titles -- "2:48 Cowboy"(rather than "Midnight Cowboy"), "My Dinner With Andre the Giant" and "A Box of Lips - Wow!" ("Apocalypse Now") -- are funny.
Sure, this movie has a winning cast and an appealing voice, but there's nothing that makes a critic swoon like the sight of a couple of oddballs paying tribute to "Apocalypse Now" by shooting "A Box of Tulips, Wow." Be still, my jaded inner nerd.
Greg and Earl are filmmakers—and merely “co-workers,” according to Greg—who spend most of their free time making parodies of classic films like Apocalypse Now, The Third Man and Citizen Kane.
They've seen practically every great art film and have set about remaking some as spoofs, with whimsical titles like "A Sockwork Orange" or "Eyes Wide Butt" or their current project, "A Box of Tulips, Wow," their take on "Apocalypse Now."
I won’t even tell you what “Apocalypse Now” gets turned into or how “Rashomon” becomes “Monorash.”
“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” — the big winner at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival — tests the limits with a smart script built around a couple of movie-mad teenagers who can’t stop making low-budget imitations of “Mean Streets,” “Citizen Kane,” “Apocalypse Now” and other classics.
Her frazzled, single mom is played by "SNL" alum Molly Shannon, who brings a boozy floozy quality to the character, clearly modeled after Anne Bancroft's Mrs. Robinson from that earlier generational touchstone, "The Graduate."