Alfonso Gómez-Rejón
Quel fantastico peggior anno della mia vita

LA RECENSIONE

This time the Italian title is definitely better than the original “Me & Earl & the Dying Girl”, which is the same as the eponymous 2012 novel from which the film was adapted.

The beginning of the film immediately presents us with the fact that Rachel (a high school girl) has been diagnosed with a form of leukemia and her mother, Denise, informs Mrs. Gaines, the mother of Greg (a resourceful high school senior who attends the same school as Rachel), who then invites her son to reach out to Rachel to lift her spirits even though the two have never interacted and only know each other by sight. Initially reluctant, but being genuinely kind-hearted, Greg attempts several approaches to satisfy his mother’s not-so-simple (for him) request.

It’s not a film that plays on emotions to draw some easy tears as one might expect; instead, the director, who is making his second effort in 2015, often manages to make us smile (thanks to Jesse Andrews, the same author who also wrote the screenplay) through that sentiment that only a sincere and selfless, albeit newly formed, friendship can nurture, aided by Earl, Greg’s childhood friend and neighbor, who joins in to make Rachel feel less isolated in her battle against the inevitable.

In its ninety minutes, this film, which I believe is more aimed at a youthful audience than us adults now far removed from certain teenage circles and who nevertheless don’t shy away from stepping into their shoes, even as boomers or vdm as is trendy to say these days, cleverly draws us into this story that eventually manages to extract half a tear from us, all set to a soundtrack by that semi-unknown vdm to the giuovini, bearing the grandiose name of Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno.