Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Winner of the 2015 Sundance Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award, this is the rare example of a film where the term coming-of-age story should not put off adult viewers. It would have been easy to reach for sentimentality and cheap tricks because Me, Earl and the Dying Girl is about a high school senior forced to spend time with his friend diagnosed with leukemia. However, the film does turn on extracting emotional reactions to the dreaded disease; surprisingly, comedy pervades the narrative. Props to writer Jesse Andrews, who adapted the script from his own novel, for his unpretentious dialogues and spry zingers, and to the three young acting stars who lend the film an aura of credibility and a natural vibe. The relatively predicable story sparkles with attention-grabbing spoofs of film classics played by the cinephile characters. Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon also plays with the film like a teen, by shooting numerous scenes analogously to historical famous takes. The film is touching and small, but also thoughtful and assured in a way that lingers after the inevitable tears have been shed and the obvious lessons learned, writesA.O. Scott for „The New York Times.”