In Danger of Death and Friendship

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl Offers a Powerful Story with a Weak Source of Hope

(This article was originally published on BreakPoint.org. Read it at http://archive.breakpoint.org/features-columns/articles/entry/12/27611.)

Boasting a filmmaking style similar to that of the much-loved, much-hated classic Napoleon Dynamite, the new movie Me and Earl and the Dying Girl features an off-beat mix of crude high school humor, adolescent awkwardness, and touching moments. Even though off-color jokes and bad language nearly drowns out the characters and themes, this summer flick still manages to pack a punch with its moving story and unabashed examination of the human experience. Despite a plethora of tear-jerking moments, this film has its share of laughs and manages to leave its audiences with a sense of hope and beauty—although the reason for that hope and beauty receives no satisfactory explanation within the movie itself. The unlikely star of this film is Greg (Thomas Mann), a high school senior. Self-diagnosed as “terminally weird” and “innovatively stupid” when it comes to relationships, Greg survives by flying under the radar. He makes himself visible just enough to be accepted by each of the diverse cliques at the school but not enough to actually consider anyone his “friend.” Greg even insists that Earl (RJ Cyler), his only actual friend, is just his co-worker. Since kindergarten—when Greg’s wacky sociologist father (Nick Offerman) first introduced them to foreign films—Greg and Earl have been making cheap parodies of classic films together, so Greg can get away with calling him that. Greg has been satisfied with this lifestyle for the past 12 years. But when his nagging mother (Connie Britton) forces him to visit Rachel (Olivia Cooke), a girl from his class who has been recently diagnosed with leukemia, Greg finally clicks with another human being, and his comfortable, nearly friendless existence at school threatens to come to an end.

Despite Greg’s low opinion of himself, Rachel sees the best in Greg and unabashedly urges him onward to bigger and better things. She’s convinced that college will do him good, even though—as he readily admits—he dreads another four years of navigating cliques and hiding his awkwardness. As their relationship continues, however, Greg begins to accept the possibility of college. Yet his friendship with Rachel may be more taxing for him than either he or Rachel had anticipated.

If you have a thing for movies that can make you both laugh and cry, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is the film for you this summer. The unembellished depiction of themes and experiences common to all of humanity lends it a down-to-earth quality that serves as a perfect backdrop to the all-too-realistic subject matter. But the characters are what really make this movie lovable. Played by relatively low-profile, perfectly cast actors, Greg, Earl, and Rachel are just below-average kids with an above-average story to tell. They are kids of today’s culture and worldview—jaded and often crude, but clinging to one another and their own stories for some sort of meaning in a world that just doesn’t quite make sense. Greg’s witty, conversational, sometimes awkward narration brightens up the often gray mood, and his day-by-day interactions with his friends are unique and organic.

With this “unique and organic” quality of the film, however, comes some tough stuff, including foul language, the aforementioned crude humor, sexual comments, a couple of brief fistfights, and a smattering of drug content. At times, the dirty moments can certainly overwhelm any sense of beauty that the movie imparts, reserving this film for mature audiences only.

Beneath the starkly average existences of the three teenaged characters, however, are the redemptive themes of friendship, self-sacrifice, and unconditional love. This film is also a testimony to the eternal nature of the human soul, although not always in ways that one might expect or hope for. As one character explains to Greg, human life does not simply end with the final breath. Every person leaves something behind: stories, keepsakes, places. These things carry the marks of that person’s life, allowing that life to continue to unfold to the people left behind even after he or she dies.

Although such thoughts warm the heart, and even though this concept is true to some extent, I still can’t help but think of verses such as Isaiah 40:7-8, which says, “Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall.” And as James says, our lives are but mists that “appear for a little while” before vanishing (James 4:14). The Bible does not beat around the bush when it comes to the fleeting nature of man’s existence, and as another book of the New Testament reminds us, not even the world we leave behind us will last for long (Matthew 24:35).

This is why the hope that “Me and Earl” hints at cannot quite satisfy. While trying to hold on to the idea that eternity is in the hearts of men, the movie places that eternity in the things of this world rather than in something that is truly eternal—something that Isaiah goes on to talk about in the passage I mentioned above: “The word of our God endures forever” (Isaiah 40:8). It is only through that Word—the Word that became flesh—that humanity has the hope of eternity and the hope of transcending average lives in a troublesome world.

Although I would have preferred that the existential worldview of this film be replaced by the more hopeful, biblical understanding of existence, I did appreciate the way it handled these deep issues and themes. Despite the language and innuendo that sometimes gave it a trashy feel, it still elicited heartwarming laughter and heartrending tears. The movie left me with one of those delicious aftertastes that made me consider what a beautiful thing it is to be alive.