When Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's Me and Earl and the Dying Girl premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, it was heralded as the best of the festival, and wound up not only winning the Grand Jury Prize, but the Audience Award as well. Watching the movie's debut trailer, it's not hard to see why it roped so many people in, because it seems to play all the right strings.
Fox Searchlight is set to release the film in theaters this summer,and it looks like they will be presenting some cool indie comedy that comes spliced with some heart-wrenching cancer drama. With these kinds of movies, you're always afraid of a little too much quirk or a bit too much cloying, and while you can't tell everything from a trailer, this preview suggests that the film will well navigate those waters.
Based on the novel by Jesse Andrews (who also wrote the script), Me and Earl and the Dying Girl stars Thomas Mann as Greg, a high school senior who is making his way through adolescence actively trying not to create any kind of deeper relationships, just hoping to make it through his teen years. Of course, this plan gets derailed when he is asked by his mom (Connie Britton) to spend some time with Rachel (Olivia Cooke), one of his classmates who has just been diagnosed with Leukemia. In bonding with Rachel, as well as taking her into his private world of parody movie-making with his "co-worker" Earl (RJ Cyler), Greg begins to actually understand the importance of relationships - but it's with someone running out of time.
Watching this trailer, what I can imagine being a lot of fun watching in the film are the various movies that Greg and Earl cook up, as they look rather ridiculous. There are some pretty choice ones featured in the clip, including "Sockwork Orange" and "2:48pm Cowboy," but I think my favorite has to be the Don't Look Now riff, a.k.a. Don't Look Now Because A Creepy-Ass Dwarf Is About To Kill You!!! DAMN (complete with Thomas Mann in Donald Sutherland wig and mustache).
As seen in the trailer, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl has a rather stacked cast of great talents, including not only the names mentioned above, but also Jon Bernthal, Nick Offerman, Molly Shannon, and Bobb'e J. Thompson. Given the buzz coming off the film, we will surely be hearing a lot more about it in the next few months, so stay tuned for its release on June 12th!
