Coming of age stories are a challenge to hit the right tone, as our high school stories, and ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL is both. In terms of sentimentality when you have "DYING GIRL" in the title and that dying girl is cute and sweet, you're taking quite a shortcut. You would really have to build animosity in the audience for them not to feel for her. As for tone, there is so much quirk and so much style that much of this picture plays like a live action cartoon.

 

That's not to say it's bad. Overall it's very entertaining. Novelist and Screenwriter Jesse Andrews has created three interesting characters at the core of his story. Unfortunately the supporting cast is cartoony. As a result there are a lot of laughs. But I wish he had dialed back the quirk and that Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon had reined in the style. The camera moves and the composition are so over the top and call attention to themselves that it was distracting. It's as if he had no faith in the material or his actors, so he had to add a layer of style over everything so you would pay attention. The effect is the opposite. Though he does seem to gradually tone it down as the picture progresses.

 

Thomas Mann is capable as Greg Gaines, the character through which we see the story. He is relatable and someone you feel for.

 

Olivia Cooke is lovely as Rachel the Dying Girl. She is beautiful and charismatic and very easy to feel sympathy for.

 

RJ Cyler as Earl steals every scene that he is in. The writing is sharp and his performance is fantastic. He is a real highlight in the picture.

 

The supporting cast is full of familiar actors - Connie Britton, Nick Offerman, Jon Bernthal, Molly Shannon - and they all score some laughs, but none of them are playing real people. 

 

Because it's so easy to fall for Olivia Cooke's Rachel, I wonder if the more interesting story would have been to take a "Mean Girl", give her Leukemia and see how it plays out where Greg is forced to befriend her. That would be a challenge. This Rachel should be surrounded by friends and supporters.

 

ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL won both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at this year's Sundance Film Festival. While I can see it as a crowd pleaser, there must not have been much competition for the Grand Jury Prize. This is a funny and entertaining picture, but the look at me style and the quirky cartooniness really get in the way.

REVIEW: "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" by Brian McQuery