‘Sick flicks’ invade the teen market

I don’t know about you, but I’m a little disturbed by the current trend of “sick lit” books being turned into “sick flicks” — young-adult novels-turned-movies like The Fault in Our Stars, in which the star-crossed first lovers are both dying of cancer, and Before I Die, in which a terminally ill 16-year-old compiles a bucket list of things to do before she dies.

Now comes Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, based on the bestselling YA book of the same name by Jesse Andrews. I’ve only read a sample of the book but the first two chapters are funny and likable, if more than a little indebted to seminal works like JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye.

I have no idea if Andrews, who adapted his coming-of-age tale for the screen, wrote it as a sort of anti-Fault in Our Stars — “If this was a touching, romantic story, then suddenly we would be making out with the fire of a thousand suns,” the protagonist Greg intones early on in the film, “but this isn’t a touching, romantic story.”

Whatever the intention behind Me and Earl, the parallels between the two movies can’t be denied, and I can just about hear the Hollywood pitch: “It’s Fault in Our Stars meets 500 Days of Summer” — what better formula to win over both Sick Flick and Romantic Quirky Indie Movie audiences everywhere?

Except this isn’t a romantic movie, as we are constantly reminded. It’s more about friendship, and the impact friends — however unlikely they are as friendship candidates — make on our lives.

The “me” in the title refers to Greg Gaines (Thomas Mann), 17, the type of boy we all knew in high school: smart, socially awkward, cute in a goofy sort of way, and a misfit who, since he doesn’t belong to any particular clique, tries to become a member of all, shuffling between the jocks, gothy dorks, theater kids and gangbangers with equal unease.

While he tries to keep a low profile in a chaotic high school he likens to Kandahar, the “real” Greg outside class is a film nerd who makes short movies with childhood buddy Earl (RJ Cyler), a black boy from the poorer side of town. The short reels they make together are low-budget parodies of classic films like Breathless (Breathe Less), Blue Velvet (Brew Vervet) and Apocalypse Now (A Box a ’Lips Now, with “’Lips” referring to tulips… okay, never mind).

The montage of their film oeuvre is one of the cleverest and most endearing aspects of Me and Earl, though what seems a solid friendship on the surface we find is built on shaky ground: Earl explains that Greg is so non-committal that he doesn’t call him a friend, but a coworker.

Greg’s mom announces that his classmate Rachel (Olivia Cooke) has been diagnosed with leukemia, and that he must visit and extend comfort. Unsurprisingly, Greg recoils from such responsibility, especially towards a girl he is only casually acquainted with. But mom, whom Greg describes as “the LeBron James of nagging,” prevails, and before we know it, Greg is at Rachel’s doorstep, being woman-handled by Rachel’s mom (a funny-creepy Molly Shannon).

After the initial awkwardness in Rachel’s bedroom, where Greg admits to a masturbatory fondness for throw pillows, they settle into a semblance of boy-girl friendship (cue friendship montage, with subtitles like “Day 71 of Doomed Friendship”).

Rachel is indeed that girl we were all casually acquainted with in high school: pretty in a way that could blossom into real beauty given time, sarcastic in the way of teen girls, supportive in trying to assuage Greg about his insecurities, but essentially a cipher. We only find out who she really is and what she’s about right before the movie’s final “Fin.”

As with most indie films that do well at Sundance (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl won both Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize and Audience Choice Award for 2015), the peripheral characters orbiting around the central trio are mined for their quirkiness, and since the setting is 2014, they’re not only quirky but hipster as well. Greg’s dad is a tenured professor who lounges around the house in caftans and serves them snacks like pork knuckles and cuttlefish. Greg’s sympathetic teacher is a bearded, tattooed, booted sage who spouts wisdom that could have been culled from either Buddhist sutras or the Harley-Davidson biker handbook.

This is not to say that Me and Earl… is not a good movie. It is, with capable direction by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (American Horror Story), fine acting by the three leads (in particular Cyler, who provides much of the heart and soul of the triad), and an atmospheric score by Brian Eno, who even provides some original material.

But, while most of the audience at the screening was sniffling by the end, including my 12-year-old daughter — a former Fault in Our Stars fan who jumped off the John Green bandwagon with a vengeance — I was left mysteriously dry-eyed. Maybe I didn’t get enough on the interior life of Rachel, the dying girl. Maybe I’m a heartless cynic who’s seen too many sick flicks and quirky indie films. Maybe it was because I felt manipulated into crying, and my response to feeling manipulated into doing something is to not do it at all.

The real issue I have with the sick lit/sick flick movement is that, for lack of life-or-death issues in the First World, where day-to-day existence is usually so safe and far removed that the only problems supposedly plaguing teens are how to take a sweet selfie or put together a killer #ootd, a life-threatening illness is one of the few ways to create dramatic tension in a teen movie that’s not about first love.

Unlike Fault in Our Stars, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl doesn’t shy away from showing the more graphic effects of chemotherapy, like Rachel’s hairless head and her increasing states of disease and disconnection. Obviously, when you’re feeling that ill and nauseous from chemo, the last thing you’re in the mood for is hanging out, much less a make-out session with “the fire of a thousand suns.”

When Greg shows her a film he makes for her at the end, his images and her reaction to them demonstrate the power of films to heal… and maybe even harm. A romantic story it’s not, but you’d have to be made of stone to not find it touching.

* * *

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, from 20th Century Fox, will open in cinemas on Sept. 16.