"Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" is a difficult film to like, but even more difficult to dislike. The protagonist is an emotionally detached teenager who makes corny parodies of classic films and secretly loves a high school hottie who is out of his league. He confronts several dramatic challenges. He needs to learn to show real emotion and to accept the friendship of others. He needs to mature in his passion for cinema and take his corny amateurish films to a level of genuine filmmaking where he will actually take pride in showing them to others. And he needs to channel his sexual urges into an actual relationship instead of avoiding any contact with any other student, especially the girl of his fantasies. He has a couple of other challenges as well. He needs to stop being a high school student and get into college where he can develop skills for a future career. And he needs to develop a relationship with the dying girl, which is a sort of allegory for the other challenges in his life.
Like "Inglourious Basterds," "The Deal" and "The Player," the film is about cinema, filmmakers and filmmaking. On one hand, the corny little parodies that Greg and Earl make are a brilliant device for establishing the character of the two male leads and providing a mechanism to show Greg's maturation and emotional attachment to Rachel. But ultimately the parodies seem vacuous. They're like the cereal box in "2001: A Space Odyssey" or the produce in "The Interview," realistic outside, but phony inside. When it comes time for Greg and Earl to actually produce a movie with genuine emotion for Rachel, we see that they have some good footage of their interviews, but in the end he cops out and does an elaborate stop-motion animation that has (at least in the part we see) no relevance to her life, unless it's a cynical statement that inanimate things can be given the illusion of life.
In a deus ex machina event of inconceivable proportions, given the scale of the story, he is given an opportunity for romance with the putatively hottest girls in school, but reverts to his selfish, misanthropic ways and stands her up for an important date, doubtlessly humiliating her before her classmates, and suffers no consequences. While one could argue that he broke the date for altruistic reasons, the manner in which he did so seems callous and suggests he has not grown at all emotionally.
If one views his dramatic challenge as easing Rachel's passing and the film itself as Greg's story of his adolescence, then one could argue that he prevailed. But if one views his relationship with Rachel as learning to express himself emotionally so he can establish relationships with others, especially Madison, he fails miserably and ends the film pretty much the same misanthropic jerk he was at the beginning. And he still has no direction in his life. He actively applies for entrance to Pitt, but why Pitt? If his entire life has been about filmmaking. He should be trying to get into a film school.
The film is disappointing in the way that it shows considerable promise, but could have been better. The hokey amateur videos were a brilliant device, but are used more as a gimmick than an allegory. The father and the history professor are fascinated by exotic foods, but the food that has the greatest impact turns out to be a batch of cookies. Rachel is a pretty girl and Earl is fascinated by her breasts, but Greg never kisses her. The film has numerous good elements and clever ideas that aren't quite developed as well as they could have been.
Performances are good. Technical aspects are adequate. A few shots are unsteady and the cinematographer engages in a few self-indulgent odd camera angles and movements. A few scenes, such as the fight scene in the cafeteria, seem like they were done in one shot and might have benefited from additional takes and camera angles. Dialogue is good, especially for the two mothers, but even the limo driver has some decent lines.
Like "Inglourious Basterds," "The Deal" and "The Player," the film is about cinema, filmmakers and filmmaking. On one hand, the corny little parodies that Greg and Earl make are a brilliant device for establishing the character of the two male leads and providing a mechanism to show Greg's maturation and emotional attachment to Rachel. But ultimately the parodies seem vacuous. They're like the cereal box in "2001: A Space Odyssey" or the produce in "The Interview," realistic outside, but phony inside. When it comes time for Greg and Earl to actually produce a movie with genuine emotion for Rachel, we see that they have some good footage of their interviews, but in the end he cops out and does an elaborate stop-motion animation that has (at least in the part we see) no relevance to her life, unless it's a cynical statement that inanimate things can be given the illusion of life.
In a deus ex machina event of inconceivable proportions, given the scale of the story, he is given an opportunity for romance with the putatively hottest girls in school, but reverts to his selfish, misanthropic ways and stands her up for an important date, doubtlessly humiliating her before her classmates, and suffers no consequences. While one could argue that he broke the date for altruistic reasons, the manner in which he did so seems callous and suggests he has not grown at all emotionally.
If one views his dramatic challenge as easing Rachel's passing and the film itself as Greg's story of his adolescence, then one could argue that he prevailed. But if one views his relationship with Rachel as learning to express himself emotionally so he can establish relationships with others, especially Madison, he fails miserably and ends the film pretty much the same misanthropic jerk he was at the beginning. And he still has no direction in his life. He actively applies for entrance to Pitt, but why Pitt? If his entire life has been about filmmaking. He should be trying to get into a film school.
The film is disappointing in the way that it shows considerable promise, but could have been better. The hokey amateur videos were a brilliant device, but are used more as a gimmick than an allegory. The father and the history professor are fascinated by exotic foods, but the food that has the greatest impact turns out to be a batch of cookies. Rachel is a pretty girl and Earl is fascinated by her breasts, but Greg never kisses her. The film has numerous good elements and clever ideas that aren't quite developed as well as they could have been.
Performances are good. Technical aspects are adequate. A few shots are unsteady and the cinematographer engages in a few self-indulgent odd camera angles and movements. A few scenes, such as the fight scene in the cafeteria, seem like they were done in one shot and might have benefited from additional takes and camera angles. Dialogue is good, especially for the two mothers, but even the limo driver has some decent lines.