Review of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015) by Joel M — 02 Oct 2015

***** Excellent.

The independent movie "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" is a rich, creative, emotional, and inspiring narrative that is so much more than a tale of a teenager diagnosed with leukemia. Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon no se rajo and orchestrates the picture as a quirky gem still respecting that one of its main characters is in a mortal state; and in no way, shape, or form, disrespects that. The film stars Thomas Mann as Greg, a high school student who evades being part of a click in high school, but not having absolute distant from any of them. RJ Cyler co-stars as Earl, Greg's best friend and also film partner. Greg & Earl make eccentric short films with a pun touch on film classics; which personally I think was masterful. My fav of the bunch was Sockwork Orange, which was bloody hilarious. Anyways, back to the story. Greg's mother pressures him to better befriend & be supportive to Rachel (Olivia Cooke), who has just been diagnosed with leukemia. Greg is hesitant at first, but then a very cool friendship blossoms between Greg & Rachel that sure had lots of life in it. Sure, there are a couple of predictable turns in the movie, but it does not hamper the film in one bit. Young thespians Mann, Cyler, and Cooke were very solid in their performances; most notably Cooke. And I loved the supporting work of the underrated Jon Bernthal as Mr. McCarthy, the unorthodox history teacher who becomes some sort of new wave mentor for Greg. Jesse Andrews' adapted screenplay of his novel is Oscar-worthy and I wish I had Jesse's world of script talent. So liven up your life just a little bit, and go visit "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl". It's the best movie I have seen so far in 2015.