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Rating: It seems like the usual, more or less cliched tale of clever and amusing American high schoolers, with the somewhat endearingly misfit one, the sharp black guy, the usual “tribes” of teenagers, and a few atypical tattooed teachers.
The odd couple are great friends, have predictably opposing families, and within the white family, the two begin to cultivate a strange passion for auteur cinema, European and beyond, going as far as to create parodies of famous films shot by the “odd misfit couple” purely for their own pleasure.
So, you smile, you fool around, there are a few unexpected jokes, and the atmosphere is pleasant, a bit bohemian, a bit transgressive-alternative but always somewhat whimsical and mocking of teenage clichés (?) that I suppose might find some counterparts in many Italian schools.
Except that at a certain point, a classmate somewhat ignored by the overall picture does not come down with leukemia.
Upon learning this, the mother of the unfortunate white guy invites him to visit the girl to give her comfort and be by her side. This is not well-received by either him or her (“who knows you?!? Who are you?? What do you want from me?”) but the disarming sincerity that immediately develops between the two eventually leads them to spend time together, first “due to” his mother, but soon for the pleasure of both. She quickly enters his world, and shortly thereafter the world of the “odd couple,” sharing in their passion for cinema and their worldview.
And little by little, a true, intimate, and intense friendship develops between the three.
It’s strange because it involves teenagers, but even stranger because it’s a real friendship between a boy and a girl, treated with naturalness, without rhetoric, without so many clichés, without seeking scandals or forcing situations.
Well, in the end, you stop laughing, and even stop smiling.
Those who, and I think there are many, have had direct experience with cancer patients will feel deeply affected, those who view it from a distance perhaps a little less. But in the end, ladies and gentlemen, the tears fell, and not just a few. Maybe because I relived memories, maybe because I understood the suffering, maybe because, sometimes, those who are no longer here still live within the hearts of those who loved them; not just with love, but loved with friendship, which can be an even deeper love.
The subject is tough, it starts off flippant and ends in tears, but it all happens “naturally” and in the end, it remains just a story of friendship, growth, discovery, and awareness of a world that unfortunately we have encountered or will encounter, and not all of us will manage (unfortunately, because life is not a film) to live it with this serenity.
It adds nothing and takes nothing away, but it won the Sundance Film Festival 2015, soundtrack by Brian Eno.
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