Facebook Twitter Instagram
    Trending
    • Amazon Prime’s Thriller CHLOE: Talking With Series Stars Erin Doherty, Pippa Bennett-Warner, And Brandon Micheal Hall
    • Jay Aston Of GENE LOVES JEZEBEL’s US TOUR 2022
    • Randy Rhoads: Reflections Of A Guitar Icon: Traciii Guns and Director Andre Relis (Interview)
    • Phil Tippett Talks Stop-Motion Film MAD GOD, Opening June 22nd
    • San Antonio Actor Antonio Raul Corbo On Voicing Lubicchi For POUPELLE OF CHIMNEY TOWN
    • Blumhouse Television & EPIX’s UNHUMAN Interview With Director Marcus Dunstan
    • Tribeca Film Festival World Premiere Of FAMILY DINNER: Writer/Director Peter Hengl and actors Nina Katlein and Alexander Sladek (Interview)
    • DASHCAM: TIFF Award-Winning Livestream Horror from Blumhouse and HOST Director Rob Savage (Interview)
    AMFM Magazine.tv
    • Features
    • Movies
      1. Movies – Indies
      2. Movie Reviews
      3. Movies- Wide Release
      Featured
      May 5, 20220

      THE OFFER: Miles Teller, Juno Temple, Matthew Goode, Burn Gorman, Patrick Gallo, Dan Fogler and Givanni Ribisi Talk About The Fantastic New Series Based On The True Story Of The Making Of The Godfather

      Read More
      Recent
      June 24, 2022

      Amazon Prime’s Thriller CHLOE: Talking With Series Stars Erin Doherty, Pippa Bennett-Warner, And Brandon Micheal Hall

      June 19, 2022

      Phil Tippett Talks Stop-Motion Film MAD GOD, Opening June 22nd

      June 17, 2022

      San Antonio Actor Antonio Raul Corbo On Voicing Lubicchi For POUPELLE OF CHIMNEY TOWN

    • Photography
      1. Event Photos
      Featured
      December 7, 20210

      Nat Geo Photographer Joel Sartore Founds Photo Ark Project To Document All The World’s Species – Before They Disappear

      Read More
      Recent
      February 11, 2022

      NAT GEO EXPLORER Gabby Salazar Documents Conservation Around The Globe

      December 15, 2021

      Nat Geo’s Photographer Gordy Medroz On Ski And Snowboard Illustrated Guide ‘100 Slopes Of A Lifetime’

      December 7, 2021

      Nat Geo Photographer Joel Sartore Founds Photo Ark Project To Document All The World’s Species – Before They Disappear

    • ABOUT US
    • Music
      1. Indies
      2. Majors
      3. Reviews
      Featured
      May 9, 20220

      Paul Humphreys Talks ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK North American Tour Hits Dallas, Houston 5/10 and 5/11

      Read More
      Recent
      June 23, 2022

      Jay Aston Of GENE LOVES JEZEBEL’s US TOUR 2022

      June 23, 2022

      Randy Rhoads: Reflections Of A Guitar Icon: Traciii Guns and Director Andre Relis (Interview)

      June 3, 2022

      Composer Theodore Shapiro Talks Apple TV+ Series SEVERANCE

    • THE WIRE
    • Literarians
    AMFM Magazine.tv
    You are at:Home»World News»Movies»Movie Reviews»PhxFF Interview: ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL And How Funny You Can Make Leukemia

    PhxFF Interview: ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL And How Funny You Can Make Leukemia

    0
    By christine on April 14, 2015 Movie Reviews, Movies - Indies

    me-and-earl-and-the-dying-girl-thomas-mann

    Phoenix Film Festival is one of my can’t miss on the year. They play such a variety of films, including a fair amount of genre pics (courtesy of the International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival, which runs concurrently), as well as indie comedies, docs and great shorts. And when it comes to marquee events, they never seem to program a film just because they can get a star there, or because it might be a world première. They are actively trying to bring the best films to Phoenix. This is certainly the case with ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL, a touching and hilarious surprise of a film that brought Sundance audiences (and distributors) to their feet.

    Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon and written by Jesse Andrews, based on Andrews’ 2012 début novel of the same name, the film chronicles the friendship Greg Gaines (Thomas Mann, Project X) is forced into by his mother (Connie Britton) when she discovers the daughter of her friend is dying of leukemia. Rachel Kushner (Olivia Cooke, Bates Motel) has just enough spunk to keep it together, though her mother (Molly Shannon) seems daily on the verge of a drunken nervous breakdown. If this doesn’t sound at all like a comedy, that’s because by all rights it shouldn’t be. However, there is so much joy in these characters and their inevitable intimacy, as well as the intentionally hopelessly inept cinematic tributes Greg makes with Earl (newcomer Ronald Cyler II), that the film never dips into maudlin until the final third, and by the time it does, it is earned well-over it.

    me-and-earl2-614Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is one of the most beautiful films I’ve seen in years, and it does it completely with story. There are no hokey images of slow motion leaves falling or anything like that. This is all the reality of THE SPECTACULAR NOW, but funny, and with all the stakes of THE FAULT IN OUR STARS but never reaching the schmaltzy heights that film rode to the box office. I had a chance to talk with Gomez-Rejon after the screening at Phoenix about his career-turning film.

    “I’d lost my dad about a year and a half before I read the script,” the director says about discovering Andrews’ screenplay, “I was quite confused and disoriented and wasn’t adjusting very well but luckily I had television.” Gomez-Rejon began his career in the industry as an assistant to Martin Scorsese, before becoming a second unit director, a commercial director, and finally a TV director, directing episodes of Glee and American Horror Story. “I was directing a lot of American Horror Story and having a lot of fun with it and experimenting,” he remembers, “thinking I was going to get fired just doing bold things but I just kept getting promoted and it was wonderful, but I knew deeply that I needed to tell personal stories.” He was searching for a story to tell when his agent sent him Andrews’ screenplay, more as a writing sample as anything. “When it got to the scene with Mr. McCarthy (Jon Bernthal as Greg’s teacher) saying ‘when people die their story continues to unfold, you just have to pay attention,’ I was very moved by such a simple idea that I desperately needed to hear,” he says, “and I latched on to the script at that point. …I very much identified with 17-year-old Greg. Then I was able to take that journey with him to the end and really process the loss… it integrated it into me.”

    me earlThe film does such a great job balancing the comedy with the heavy subject matter, something Gomez-Rejon credits first to the writing. “The kids sounded like kids, they didn’t sound like a lot of high school movies,” he says, “for me, I just can’t relate to anybody cynical. These were just very funny and naturally authentic humans — it never talked down to anybody.” The next level goes to Mann and Cooke, the ‘forced friends.’ “It was about finding the right partner,” he says, “where it wasn’t sexual, it wasn’t romantic, this is not that movie — and he tells us that a couple of times.” Olivia Cooke, who plays a similarly fated character on Bates Motel, was always his choice. The director felt she could handle both the comedy and the drama, without ever becoming melodrama – and these are some heavy scenes. Mann, whose engery ranges from disinterest to mild annoyance with his circumstances at the open, and becomes severely invested in this doomed relationship by the close, was the perfect foil. “This intense bond was beyond sexual,” Gomez-Rejon says about the not-relationship the two leads have, “maybe in about five years this will be a great love story. It’s very Harold and Maude-ish in that way, just a very deep connection.”

    One of the things that really pays off in the film is Greg’s perspective, the lens through which we see the film. Sometimes he lets the audience in on what is about to happen before it does, sometimes his version of events is not exactly what we are seeing on-screen. “I think his voice is very authentic of someone that is a creator, a filmmaker, a story-teller,” the director says. The set up for the film is Greg writing this story, after the fact, as part of his college admission process. For Gomez-Rejon, “he’s telling the story the way one does in that moment; denial is a big part of that at times and also humor to balance out the serious, the bitter stuff in life.”

    Because Greg is a filmmaker, ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL has the beautiful but not over-stepped meta quality to it. The director agrees with me, “sure and I was also making a film – the film is a film for my father like he makes a film for Rachel.” The ridiculous homages Greg and Earl shoot also allow Gomez-Rejon to pay tribute to some of his mentors and inspirations. “Because Nick’s character [Nick Offerman, who plays Greg’s father] was obsessed with Criterion and watching Herzog films,” the director says, “it was an opportunity to not do the greatest hits of movies, but go through obscure movies and new movies. And have those movies be discovered by younger generations.” Be sure to stay through the credits when you see the film, as all the titles of their oeuvre flash on screen, including the one I most want to see, Pittsburqatsi, a tribute obviously to Koyaanisqatsi.

    me-and-earl-and-the-dying-girl-1And while we’re on post-modern classical music, I have to say the music in the film, much of which is supplied by Brian Eno, is absolutely striking. It never overdoes the motion, but always seems to color every moment with the right amount of empathy and restraint. “We were coming up with a final film song to give it that short film structure,” says Gomez-Rejon of the film Greg makes for Rachel, “I remember calling my editor from Pittsburgh and saying ‘download [seminal 1975 Eno album]Another Green World, something really interesting is happening.” The editor heard this, and just kept listening and downloading and by the time the director saw the assembly cut, it was full of Eno music. “It just became the sound of the film,” he says, “we had to figure out if we can even afford this, we’re little movie, how’s this going to happen?” They sent the script to Eno’s agent, who loved it and made sure Eno saw the film – a cut with his songs in it, which is a big risk for a filmmaker. “He loved the movie,” the director says, “I have yet to meet him. But it was a series of these beautiful emails back and forth. He went to his vault, found new material and started writing new music for us – the final film has 19 cues repurposed older music and also some completely new music.”

    What works so amazingly well in the film is that leukemia, a horrible ‘villain’ if there ever was one, is never downplayed, it is never glossed over. It is dealt with head on. But the spirit of the characters, their willingness to struggle through life and find joy where they can find it, is really inspiring. I wouldn’t have believed it possible. This is one of my favorites of the year so far.

    ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL opens nationwide June 12th and is one of only handful of films to win both the jury award and the audience award at Sundance. The last one was last year, WHIPLASH.

    Share this:

    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • More
    • Print
    • Reddit
    • WhatsApp

    Related

    Alfonso Gomez-Rejon Interview Bears Fonte Me and Earl and The Dying Girl
    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
    Previous ArticleMARQUEZ CLAIMS VICTORY AGAIN AT COTA MOTGP 2015
    Next Article Exclusive Clip: IN COUNTRY – playing Oak Cliff's Texas Theatre April 16th
    christine

    Related Posts

    San Antonio Actor Antonio Raul Corbo On Voicing Lubicchi For POUPELLE OF CHIMNEY TOWN

    Read More

    Blumhouse Television & EPIX’s UNHUMAN Interview With Director Marcus Dunstan

    Read More

    Tribeca Film Festival World Premiere Of FAMILY DINNER: Writer/Director Peter Hengl and actors Nina Katlein and Alexander Sladek (Interview)

    Read More

    Comments are closed.

    SEARCH BY CATEGORY
    • MOVIES
    • Music ICON
    • AUTHORS
    June 24, 2022

    Amazon Prime’s Thriller CHLOE: Talking With Series Stars Erin Doherty, Pippa Bennett-Warner, And Brandon Micheal Hall

    June 19, 2022

    Phil Tippett Talks Stop-Motion Film MAD GOD, Opening June 22nd

    June 9, 2022

    Composer Lorne Balfe Talks Scoring TOP GUN: MAVERICK

    September 8, 2017

    GLEN CAMPBELL: ICON Pays Tribute With “Glen Campbell Live”

    May 6, 2017

    ICON PRESENTS: The Eagle’s Greatest Hits Volume 1

    March 3, 2017

    ICON SEASON FIVE: Get Ready To Rock And Roll

    June 14, 2022

    Author Angie Thomas on THE HATE U GIVE And CONCRETE ROSE

    June 6, 2022

    CONFESSIONS OF A DORK LORD And Book #2 GRAVE DANGER: Interview With Author Mike Johnston

    May 29, 2022

    SKANDAR AND THE UNICORN THIEF: Breakout Debut From Author A.F. Steadman (Interview)

    Hulu

    [instagram-feed]

    Recent Posts
    • Amazon Prime’s Thriller CHLOE: Talking With Series Stars Erin Doherty, Pippa Bennett-Warner, And Brandon Micheal Hall
    • Jay Aston Of GENE LOVES JEZEBEL’s US TOUR 2022
    • Randy Rhoads: Reflections Of A Guitar Icon: Traciii Guns and Director Andre Relis (Interview)
    • Phil Tippett Talks Stop-Motion Film MAD GOD, Opening June 22nd
    • San Antonio Actor Antonio Raul Corbo On Voicing Lubicchi For POUPELLE OF CHIMNEY TOWN
    Archives
    amazon prime
    June 24, 20220

    Amazon Prime’s Thriller CHLOE: Talking With Series Stars Erin Doherty, Pippa Bennett-Warner, And Brandon Micheal Hall

    Interview by Paul Salfen Becky compares herself to the picture-perfect lives on Instagram, compulsively returning to one account: Chloe's. However, when Chloe dies suddenly, Becky's need to find out how and why leads her to assume a new identity. The series has been written by Netflix's Sex Education writer Alice Seabright. She is a writer

    Share this:

    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • More
    • Print
    • Reddit
    • WhatsApp
    Read More
    Featured Music
    June 23, 20220

    Jay Aston Of GENE LOVES JEZEBEL’s US TOUR 2022

    Interview by Paul Salfen ay Aston’s Gene Loves Jezebel will be taking their 40th Anniversary Tour over to North America this month. After the two dates at Pasadena’s Cruel World Festival, the band will embark on a 31-date tour of the US, with a date in Canada at Toronto. The dates and ticket links will

    Share this:

    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • More
    • Print
    • Reddit
    • WhatsApp
    Read More
    Featured Music
    June 23, 20220

    Randy Rhoads: Reflections Of A Guitar Icon: Traciii Guns and Director Andre Relis (Interview)

    Interview by Paul Salfen You can see Tracii Guns on tour now  with his band L.A. Guns.  Austin and Dallas SCHEDULE HERE Randy Rhoads, the legendary guitarist known for his unmatchable guitar riffs, re-shaped rock’n’roll as the lead guitarist for Quiet Riot and Ozzy Osbourne. After forming Quiet Riot with bandmates Kelly Garni, Drew Forsyth, and

    Share this:

    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • More
    • Print
    • Reddit
    • WhatsApp
    Read More
    Blockbuster Movies
    June 19, 20220

    Phil Tippett Talks Stop-Motion Film MAD GOD, Opening June 22nd

    Interview by Paul Salfen Synopsis: Follow The Assassin through a forbidding world of tortured souls, decrepit bunkers, and wretched monstrosities forged from the most primordial horrors of thesubconscious mind. Every set, creature, and effigy in this macabre masterpiece is hand-crafted and painstakingly animated using traditional stop-motion techniques. MAD GOD is a labor of love, a testament

    Share this:

    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • More
    • Print
    • Reddit
    • WhatsApp
    Read More
    Copyright AMFMSTUDIOS LLC
    • About
    • Privacy
    • Contact
    • Cookie Policy (US)
    Copyright AMFMSTUDIOS LLC
    • About
    • Privacy
    • Contact
    • Cookie Policy (US)

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.