ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL (12
4 stars
At the behest of his parents (Connie Britton, Nick Offerman), socially awkward high-school student Greg Gaines (Thomas Mann) visits estranged childhood friend Rachel (Olivia Cooke), who has been diagnosed with leukaemia.
“I don’t need your stupid pity, so please go,” she tells him coldly, but Greg persists.
A faltering friendship takes root, to the delight of Rachel’s boozy mother (Molly Shannon).
To impress his high-school crush (Katherine C. Hughes), Greg agrees to make a film for Rachel with his partner in creative crime, Earl (R.J. Cyler). They have been producing charming homages for years, including A Sockwork Orange, Senior Citizen Kane and Anatomy of a Burger. The pressure to deliver a masterpiece weighs heavily on Greg, creating unwelcome friction with Rachel.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a beguiling and intensely moving rites-of-passage drama, adapted from Jesse Andrews’ debut novel, which eschews mawkishness and emotional manipulation in favour of a richly detailed portrait of adolescent dreams in crisis. Mann doesn’t strike a false note in the tricky lead role, gelling naturally with Cyler and Cooke.
There are obvious similarities to The Fault in our Stars, but Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s film mines a rich vein of offbeat humour to stem the deluge of salty tears, recounted as a scrapbook of bittersweet vignettes and stop-motion animation, accompanied with self-explanatory onscreen captions like “Day One of Doomed Friendship”.
The director’s whimsical visual flourishes are a constant delight, perfectly reflecting Greg’s love of classic cinema and his penchant for homemade props.
THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL (18)
4 stars
“I had sex today,” gushes 15-year-old Minnie Goetze (Bel Powley), recording the first chapter of an audio diary on to cassettes, which she hides in a shoebox under her bed. As Minnie breathlessly details events leading up to the loss of her virginity, we realise with a shudder that her first sexual partner is her mother’s 35-year-old boyfriend, Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard).
“I was afraid to pass up the chance because I may never have another,” confesses Minnie without a hint of self-deception. Monroe becomes enslaved to Minnie, who embraces her burgeoning sexuality in the company of a rich kid fellow student (Austin Lyon), a pretty lesbian (Margarita Levieva) and her best friend, Kimmie (Madeleine Waters). It’s only a matter of time before Minnie’s bohemian, drug-snorting mom (Kristen Wiig) discovers the illegal relationship.
Adapted from Phoebe Gloeckner’s 2002 graphic novel, The Diary of a Teenage Girl is an elegant sprint through the minefield of hormone-fuelled experimentation and startling self-realisation. First-time writer-director Marielle Heller takes her aesthetic lead from the era (bell-bottomed 1976 San Francisco) and the visually arresting source material. She bleaches her colour palette to resemble a washed-out instamatic camera print and visualises the heroine’s daydreams as animated sequences – courtesy of artist Sara Gunnarsdottir – that occasionally blossom within the live action.
Powley’s luminous portrayal of a bud waiting to bloom in the warmth of the northern-California sun anchors the picture. Her heroine’s sense of fateful curiosity infuses every artful frame, catalysing terrific scenes with Wiig and Skarsgard, who lends his divisive character an easygoing charm and fallibility.