Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Greg is a teen who has spent his life trying not to be noticed by anyone particularly, and get along with everyone slightly whilst making cheap and humorous versions of famous films with his “business partner” Earl. His life takes an unexpected twist when he becomes friends with Rachel, someone he vaguely knew who has been recently diagnosed with cancer.

Now before anyone says “the fault in our stars” let me say that this is not a film about cancer. It just so happens that one of the characters has it. In fact it’s more of a film about making films than it is about cancer. And it is also not overtly sentimental. I wouldn’t call it a tearjerker in any sense, and while I did cry that’s more because of who I am as a person rather than the film (I cried more at Inception than at this).

When the film starts it uses this kind of self-referential narrator thing and I really thought “oh god this is going to get so grating” but I settled into it and it never irritated me again. Sometimes when you watch these knowingly indie movies they can feel a bit cold and that there isn’t much heart in them. But I found MAEATDG (that’s the title folks) to be pretty charming actually.

I really got on board with all of the characters and just settled into the film as a whole. It sounds like it’s going to be a difficult watch what with the mix of being very indie and about a terminal illness, but it’s actually one of the most watchable films of the year. It is fantastically well written and while really we’ve all seen most of this film before, it still feels fresh.

Overall, going into this I had my doubts, and I’m sure you will too, but it is genuinely very very good. I’d heartily recommend you watch it.

8/10