Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Where to begin? It’s a question Greg (Thomas Mann) asks himself at the start of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. He’s trying to write the story of his senior year in high school—the year he spent with Rachel (Olivia Cooke), a classmate diagnosed with leukemia. It’s a question I’m asking myself now too, as I try to fit everything I loved about this fun and heartfelt film into one review. Like Greg, I guess I’ll just start.
Greg describes himself as a groundhog-faced, insufferably awkward social chameleon. He can blend in with any of the cliques that populate his school, but he chooses to belong to none (he’s trying to save himself from that aforementioned awkwardness and escape high school without suffering too many embarrassments). His only real friend is Earl (newcomer RJ Cyler), though Greg would never acknowledge him as such. Greg and Earl are filmmakers—and merely “co-workers,” according to Greg—who spend most of their free time making parodies of classic films like Apocalypse Now, The Third Man and Citizen Kane. (The titles and brief clips of Greg and Earl’s hilarious parodies are a highlight.)
Greg is content to have the most limited of high school experiences and just make his movies until he has to face the looming threat of college. But when Greg’s mom (Connie Britton) forces him to hang out with Rachel, he has to abandon his casual-interactions-only policy and actually spend meaningful time with someone other than a “colleague.” So begins what Greg dubs his “doomed friendship” with Rachel.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl follows Greg and Rachel as they help each other cope. Greg helps Rachel deal with all the pity, anger and exhaustion that come with having cancer, and Rachel helps Greg deal with his fear of connection. Along the way, Greg and Earl are coaxed into creating a film for Rachel—a project that both terrifies and consumes Greg.