Review of Everything, Everything (2017) by Spencer S — 16 Nov 2017

Sick-lit has become a formidable genre of YA ever since the blockbuster success of John Green's The Fault in Our Stars. It's spawned similar books, films, and television shows, and there's generally an element of romance attached. Some of these properties have been respectful of real diseases and disorders, but a lot have not been. I strongly feel that this may fall into the latter. I feel that books like this promote the idea that people with unique medical issues don't enjoy life as much, and their only option is either death or a flirtation with death. (This exact attitude made me throw my copy of Me Before You across the room). In the US every year, between 40-100 babies are diagnosed with SCID, which means that though this is a rare disorder, there are people out there living with it the best way they can, and they may not have the fancy equipment that our protagonist does. Using SCID for the purpose of melodrama is not only insensitive, but dangerous.

Putting aside my general disgust (which is overwhelming) it's just not a good story. Comparing again to The Fault in Our Stars, I can say this was not as interesting or candid. While Stars is also a story about being young and sick, and living life to the fullest, it's also honest. Gus is a character with issues, and those issues lend to succumbing and dying of cancer. John Green does not mess around. Instead of truly showing the effects and issues with SCID, this film blatantly twists the truth. This film posits that happiness stems from heath, romantic love, and freedom, three things that people with SCID will never have.

While I'm glad that this is an adaptation from a female penned book, directed by a woman of color, and starring a woman of color, I can't justify recommending this film. As much as I want to celebrate representation, I also don't want to promote exploitative melodrama. While I thought Amandla Stenberg and Nick Robinson did a lot with a little, and in the least they do try to explain SCID in an authentic way, it was not an enjoyable film. It was slow, overly ridiculous, and not really all that interesting. If you want something similar, again I tout Stars, as well as the Netflix film The Fundamentals of Caring, which centers on a paraplegic teenager who also wants to live life to the fullest. It doesn't pretend to understand human suffering, it's funny, and it has heart.