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- 2015
- PG-13
- Fox Searchlight Pictures
- 1 h 45 m
- 2015
- PG-13
- Fox Searchlight Pictures
- 1 h 45 m
Summary Greg (Thomas Mann), a high school senior who is trying to blend in anonymously, avoids deeper relationships as a survival strategy for navigating the social minefield that is teenage life. He even describes his constant companion Earl (RJ Cyler), with whom he makes short film parodies of classic movies, as more of a ‘co-worker’ than a b...
Directed By: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Written By: Jesse Andrews
- 2015
- PG-13
- Fox Searchlight Pictures
- 1 h 45 m
- 2015
- PG-13
- Fox Searchlight Pictures
- 1 h 45 m
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
74
8.0
Where to Watch
Summary Greg (Thomas Mann), a high school senior who is trying to blend in anonymously, avoids deeper relationships as a survival strategy for navigating the social minefield that is teenage life. He even describes his constant companion Earl (RJ Cyler), with whom he makes short film parodies of classic movies, as more of a ‘co-worker’ than a b...
Directed By: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Written By: Jesse Andrews
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 40 Critic Reviews
74
85% Positive
34 Reviews
34 Reviews
8% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
8% Negative
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 40 Critic Reviews
74
85% Positive
34 Reviews
34 Reviews
8% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
8% Negative
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
A must-see — and one of the best films of the year.
It's a fine line between being gratingly self-conscious and really smart; more times than not, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl comes out on the winning side of that equation.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 219 User Ratings
8.0
86% Positive
188 Ratings
188 Ratings
12% Mixed
26 Ratings
26 Ratings
2% Negative
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 219 User Ratings
8.0
86% Positive
188 Ratings
188 Ratings
12% Mixed
26 Ratings
26 Ratings
2% Negative
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
This is one of the most underrated and unknown arthouse dramas I have ever seen. This movie touched me in ways that I did not know movies could, and I love movies! The story nails highschool as I knew it in the 2000s decade, and I really related to all of the characters. I don't want to say too much about this movie, but this is honestly one of the best movies I have ever seen, and if you are a serious film lover, don't look up too much about this movie, just watch it blind, and you will be blown away.
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Beautifully told sorry. Script is amazing, not made in a mainstream way. Direction is great. The movie is definetly worth watching. This film will be something I will not forget.
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This film geek's dream of a movie pulls the ground out from under you, but stays smartass to the end. Sweet.
High-school students have plenty of growing pains to offload, and Gomez-Rejon clearly knows what makes them tick. His film is at once buzzy, fun and confronting.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl treats a serious subject with wackadoodle humor that is endearingly contagious. It’s tender, clever, wise and highly recommended.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl succumbs to the same cloying too-cuteness and solipsism that often plague its glib and sentimental genre. But those limitations are leavened by the film’s lively, ultimately affecting flourishes and sprightly voice.
Gomez-Rejon has erected a gleaming shrine to adolescent narcissism.
A tragic, beautiful, uplifting testament to youth, friendship, and maturity. Endlessly powerful and hilarious. The acting is fantastic and the writing is clever. See this movie now!
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A very well done little film where all the actors do a good job. However I have to say I expected a little bit more. Towards the end there´s kind of a twist that I didn´t see coming, which should be good, but I couldn´t really enjoy it. The tone of the film is too sad overall with no special moments to compensate it.
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I think that Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a good movie.. I just didn't like it. I found the performances in the movie fairly dry to start out with but they did get a lot better as the film went on. I also felt like a film with heavy emotional plot like this would have more character development, sure the characters were complex but by the end of the film I still didn't really feel like I knew them. I think this is more of a hipster film and I'm sure there are going to be many people who find something they like about this movie I just wasn't satisfied. I really found several of the jokes kind of lame as well. I like the avoidance of clichés in this film which is difficult with teen cancer film, but I'd take 50/50 over this movie any day, but that's just my opinion.
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"Me and Earl..." is an earnest effort, and an admirable one, but it's never as witty or subversive as it thinks it is, coming across more as a self-conscious and uneven effort to mesh the populist appeal of "The Fault in Our Stars" with the quirky sensibilities of "Juno" rather than something truly unique. As a result, it can never find the right line between comedy and pathos and cannot handle either with particular consistency or efficacy. Some of it is funny and some of it is moving. Most of it is too uneven to truly be either. There is too much promise to write this off completely - the acting is very, very good and the finale is handled with such incredible delicacy and grace you can scarcely believe it's from the same film. But all in all it's a muddled affair that cannot reconcile its eccentricities with its emotions.
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Though I hate to limit myself, regarding genres of movies, after last week’s “Dope” and this week’s “Me And Earl And The Dying Girl” (from here on refereed to as “Earl”) each about 3 nerdy/geek kids and each, seemingly, critic’s darlings, I think I will add teenage movies about nerds to my list with westerns, horror, violent, raunchy boy/man, comic strip and most sci-fi pictures I will avoid seeing. (Hey, I am looking forward to “Magic Mike XXL” next week, what can I tell you?)
In the case of “Earl” and “Dope” I think there is definitely a very wide generation gap. The last time I saw my teens was 60 years ago and though I enjoyed “The Fault Is In Our Stars” last year it was more of a drama than teenage angst. There is some humor in “Earl” regarding the movies that Earl (RJ Cyler) and Geg (the ‘Me’-- Thomas Mann) make redoing classics, especially the titles they give their films. Olivia Cooke is certainly endearing as ‘the dying girl, Rachel, while Greg grows up over the course of the film and Earl is a wise young man before his time.
Molly Shannon as Rachel’s single mother and Connie Britton as Greg’s mother, both overbearing parents, along with Nick Offerman as his beatnik father---by the way Earl doesn’t have any parents and lives with his older brother who threatens Greg with telling him his dog will bite off his face--and Jon Bernthal as a teacher and, more or less, a guidance counselor to the boys, are sort of annoying adults you will find in most pictures about teenagers though the latter less than the others.
“Earl” is being sold as a comedy, a sort of John Hughes movie with lessons to be learned. Greg is constantly reminding the audience--there is a lot of voice over-- that Rachel doesn’t die and there are screen titles telling the passing of time and where we are at in the story. As a social misfit Thomas Mann carries the film and RJ Cyer is his effective sidekick and shows his many sides. Olivia Cooke is endearing as the dying girl who has leukemia and is very instrumental is helping Greg grow up.
The direction by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon is all over the place, somewhat like the movies the boys make, while the screenplay by Jesse Andrews, who wrote the best selling novel, is low key without trying to tell the audience how to feel. The director of photography shows off Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, almost always in a glow of light, even in the night scenes.
I laughed once and that was the boys film take-off of “Midnight Cowboy” with the “Everybody’s Talking” theme song and, for a comedy, laughing once is not a good endorsement.
I left the theatre wondering whatever happened to the girl who got stood up on prom night--maybe that’s the sequel?
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Production Company
Fox Searchlight Pictures,
Indian Paintbrush,
Rhode Island Ave. Productions
Release Date Jun 12, 2015
Duration 1 h 45 m
Rating PG-13
Tagline A little friendship never killed anyone.
Awards
Seattle International Film Festival
• 1 Win & 3 Nominations
Teen Choice Awards
• 3 Nominations
Empire Awards, UK
• 3 Nominations
