Review of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015) by Johnny T — 19 Sep 2015

Beautifully scripted and perfectly cast, Me & Earl & the Dying Girl is a coming-of-age movie with uncommon charm and insight. It's a fresh, beautiful and heartbreaking achievement that continues to surprise until the very last scene. Brimming with wit, crushing last-act melancholia, laughs, and poignant heart, Me And Earl And The Dying Girl is a spectacular delivery of tears, love and laughter, and a beautifully charming, captivating knock-out. This brilliantly funny, casually profound and deeply affecting coming-of-age chronicle, directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon from a screenplay by Jesse Andrews, even manages to be life-enlightening-it's a fresh take on contemporary adolescence as a journey from ironic detachment to openhearted feeling. All this may sound horrendously twee on paper. But on film, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is thoughtful and tender, bursting with mordant humour and energetic camerawork, and acted with merciful intelligence. With a surprisingly quick pace, refreshing humor, and sincere heart, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a worthy addition to the iconic coming-of-age tales that have come before it. This unconventional friendship between these two self-styled loners permits director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon and a fantastic cast to throw some unexpectedly impressive shapes throughout. Me and Earl and the Dying girl is both timeless and an unconventional coming-of-age tale for this generation. This is not your typical high school, coming of age story. It is something much more. Something truly wonderful.

VERDICT: "High-Quality Stuff" - [Positive Reaction] This is a rating to a movie I view as very entertaining and well made, and definitely worth paying the full price at a theatre to see or own on DVD. It is not perfect, but it is definitely excellent. (Films that are rated 3.5 or 4 stars).