
“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” is this year’s winner of the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2013, Jesse Andrews’ thought-provoking and moving young-adult novel Me and Earl and the Dying Girl took readers by surprise with a truly contemporary coming-of-age story, packed with smart original dialogue and fully realized teen characters.
Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, who had directed highly successful episodes in teen-oriented television series “Glee” perfectly captured the book’s offbeat humor, rare sensitivity and unique worldview in a feature film that chronicles a young man’s journey into adulthood as he learns what it means to be truly selfless. The innovative film also includes sly nods to legendary movies and tracks by the incomparable Brian Eno, including several previously unheard of compositions.

Greg, played by Thomas Mann, spends his life trying to present himself to the world as the person he wants people to see, rather than the person he actually is, according to Gomez-Rejon. “You can’t sustain an act like that forever,” the director points out. “You’ll have to eventually pull off that mask and deal with exposing yourself to rejection or, worse, indifference. Once you start to show who you really are, then the real world can react accordingly. Not everyone will like you and you’ll say things that you’ll regret. But you will grow from it.”
The teenager’s deepening friendship with cancer stricken classmate Rachel, played by Olivia Cooke, makes his posturing more difficult to maintain. “Greg starts to face real-life challenges when he becomes close to Rachel,” says Gomez-Rejon. “He’s been living in a world of his own, walking around with an art-film score in his head. Now he is engaging with a world where reality isn’t of his design.”

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