First off, the characters, a white teen, a black teen, and a Jewish teen all mashed together, ok. The black teen character smokes menthols, and talks like a tough guy, seems stereo-typical to me. Black teen character also lives on tough side of town, his older brother owns a pit bull, and of course the one "fight" in the movie is when the black teen hits the white teen in the stomach. Oh, I forgot about the other fight scene where the white rapper kid with corn-rows fights with the white teen character, and the black teen comes to his rescue and beats the crap out of the white rapper kid. OK.
The sick girl is dying of leukemia, and she is sick and dies.
What did I like about this movie? The idea of learning about someone after they die. And of course the teacher character, with tattoos, is the one that just straight out says this is what he learned after the death of his father.
Of course, we learn more about the dying girl after she dies. She apparently wanted to be a squirrel when she was younger, and ran away to the park next to her house to become one.
What did I not like? There was a montage. Waste of time, to show the passing of time in a movie. I guess. For some reason I don't like montages. Also, the hollywood perfectness of it all. This main character and his black menthol smoking tough guy friend make 60 something movies together. Main character gets into college, but then is denied because he spends all of his time seeing this dying girl, and not doing homework. And dying girl takes time off from dying to write letter to college to try and get main character back into college. There is a scene where dying girl is confronted with her death in the form of the main character trying to get into college, and she forces main character to apply to college, but dying girl tells main character that she is going to die so no need to apply to college for her. What about the black character? No college mention for him that I recall. This is messy, but what I see as hollywood perfectness of it all is that she wrote the letter, and that he probably gets back into the college. They leave that part out, that he probably gets back into college. But there is a scene where the father and mother discuss the situation and the father says it is not the end of the world. That was kind of interesting and rational. Also, we meet the main character's parents and the dying girl's mother, but not Earl's parents, just his brother and the brother's dog (are they stand-ins for the parents?). Also dying girl scene is confusing, first he is going to the prom, but then he ends up at hospital where dying girl is dying. Did I miss something?
Also, this movie, I think, was influenced by Wes Anderson, which I think is great. I love Wes Anderson movies.
Overrall I liked this movie.
