Popcorn Column by Michael S. Goldberger

Fox Searchlight Pictures  Greg, Rachel and Earl face life and death in this Sundance-winning slice of modern teen angst.

I hope that, per J.D. Salinger's lifelong dictum, there is never a movie adaptation of "The Catcher in The Rye." However, should such sacrilege come to pass, Thomas Mann, the contemporary epitome of teenaged angst and alienation in Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl," would be a perfect Holden Caulfield.

Likeable, aggravating, touching and emotionally informing, his Greg, who during senior year of high school forms a tender bond with the title girl, wins our empathy while sharing with us his seriocomic coming of age experience.

But before recommending this trenchant, intelligent and realistic pierce into a tragic situation we hope never happens to anyone, note that it is good and sad, literally and figuratively. Yet for those who figure it's high time they saw something that rings true without gunfire, the smart ruminations both dark and light, delivered with articulate honesty, make this worth considering. The flood of lovingly etched teenaged sensibilities in Jesse Andrews' screenplay, adapted from his novel, recall a mien that can only be called Salingeresque.
 

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For starters, Greg had absolutely no intention of diving into the personal watershed brought about by his relationship with Rachel, recently diagnosed with leukemia. What's more, the winsome gal, superbly portrayed by Olivia Cooke, resents the fact that Greg's mom (Connie Britton) ordered the initial get-well visit. Nonetheless, thanks to some idealistic intuition where shrewd parents know what's good for their children, the "forced" friendship turns symbiotic, genuine, poignant and edifying. Of course we all know where this is going, or so we think.

There is an absolutely ingenious and brazen literary mechanism employed by the author in the form of a promise given to us by Greg, who narrates the saga in the first person. I was suspect, but bought in for the sake of my ease and comfort. The device proves particularly beneficial when the going gets tough, which it increasingly does, ameliorated only by the powers of hope and rationalization. The latter is especially evident in the engaging repartee that evolves between Rachel and Greg, a vernacular-filled commentary that alternates between maudlin and glib.

But it's the character-rich aspect of the script's structure that supplies the interwoven comedy relief that keeps the stark realities of this story in as reasonable check as possible without diluting the issue at hand. Rounding out the troika of pals alluded to in the title, straight-talking, unequivocating Earl, played by RJ Cyler, serves as Greg's moral conscience. Greg curiously refers to him as a "co-worker," a term the partner in amateur filmmaking prefers over friend for reasons Earl explains in one especially pungent diatribe.

A whole host of other humorously likeable personalities pepper the scenario, including some of the oddball sorts you'll doubtlessly recognize from your own high school days ... even those troublesome kids who perhaps didn't seem so funny back then, when you had to deal with them. But winning the film's quirky sweepstakes by a full length is Nick Offerman as Greg's nonchalant, stoical dad, a sociology professor whose tenured status somehow allows him to hardly ever shed his bathrobe or even leave the house for that matter.

Forever quoting eccentricities, cooking up esoteric dishes and citing things important and trivial from his library of haute cinema, it's certain Dad has been influential to the budding auteurs, both of whom humbly decree that their satirizations of famous movies are of no account. We're not so sure. Though none is apt to score the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, like this film did, they're pretty nutty in a sardonic way, with takeoffs like "A Sockwork Orange," "Death in Tennis," and "Grumpy Old Cul-de-sacs" ("Mean Streets") bringing a smile to Rachel's face.

It's all very inventive, perceptive and in tune with the generation it deconstructs — a love/hate paean to the next leaders of our civilization, hard to believe or not. But here's the rub: While indeed the winner of the aforementioned prize in Park City, the film is decidedly niche stuff, rampant with a truthful mordancy better appreciated by those who've never lost touch with the art house just off campus. Unlike the mainstream fare flowing at the multiplex, "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" has the guts to be sad if it wishes.

Not that it's always so. It just doesn't feel a need to artificially balance every sorrow with an upside, channeling instead the naturally occurring, happier aspects of the human adventure that keep us from committing hara-kiri. Hence, invoking a variation on "better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all," intrepid altruists who believe the valuable lessons of experience are well worth some caustic brushes with reality, will find "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" a life-affirming night at the Bijou.

"Me and Earl and the Dying Girl," rated PG-13, is a Fox Searchlight Pictures release directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon and stars Thomas Mann, Olivia Cooke and RJ Cyler. Running time: 105 minutes

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