Review of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015) by Kyle B — 24 Sep 2015

This movie is masterful. It's the first 5 star review I have given this year, the best movie of the year so far, and the best coming of age film since The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It's hilarious, dramatic, and heartbreaking and never feels forced or tonally out of place.

Thomas Mann is wonderful as the lead and really has a career on his way. The whole ensemble is perfect with great performances from Nick Offerman, Connie Britton, Molly Shannon, and Jon Burnthal and an impressive performance from Olivia Cooke from TV's Bates Motel who never has wowed me on the show but was great here.

It has a Wes Anderson vibe to it the way it is shot and the quirky nature of the film and deadpan comedic dialogue that is often times sharp and rapid fire. The movie is almost the anti Fault in Our Stars even though I like that film a lot but this film kind of points out the cliques of young romance involving illness (the girl has leukemia) and decides not to go down that route and go its own way.

That's a big theme of this movie, it goes its own way. It has long continuous takes with no cuts and unique and interesting framing choices. This movie is also special for anyone that loves movies.

The main character and his friend make home movies somewhat spoofing classics and foreign films by alternating the names and the titles alone get the best laughs. When the movie gets dramatic, it's captivating.

The final 15 minutes of this film are some of the most magical and moving moments I have seen in a film ending in a really long time that even drove me to tears which is something I hardly do at a movie.

Yeah, it's that great. All I know is is that the Sundance Audience members that vote for the Audience Award are even better at picking movies than the Oscars giving this movie the award this year (for the record Whiplash won this award last year and this is just as great as Whiplash).

I was pleasantly surprised to see that one of my favorite TV directors Alfonso Gomez Rejon directed this, he has done work on Glee, American Horror Story, and Red Band Society and you can definitely get the vibes he had on Red Band Society in this film.

He did a wonderful job and I hope he makes more movies. I will definitely see this again when it is released in theaters widely and I hope everyone rushes out to see this delightful movie this June. It's a movie that will make you fall in love with the movies all over again.