Not that many films get to truly break out of the Sundance Film Festival each year, at least not to the level of a Little Miss Sunshine or a Whiplash. But one from this year’s event looks like it might have a shot: Me And Earl And The Dying Girl, which has put its first trailer online.
Although the title might put you in mind of a zombie film, it actually goes for heart-warming (and potentially heart-breaking) indie quirk in the story of Greg (Thomas Mann) who has been so preoccupied with blending in, avoiding forging real relationships and just trying to survive high school that he’s barely aware when one of his classmates, Rachel (Olivia Cooke) is diagnosed with cancer.
Yet when his parents (Connie Britton and Nick Offerman) pressure him into spending time with Rachel to try to cheer her up, a bond slowly begins to form. One which deepens when he introduces her to Earl (RJ Cyler) a friend he can barely bring himself to call as such, with whom he makes short spoof versions of movies. As Greg and Earl start to work on a movie for Rachel, Greg starts to realise what he might have been missing out on.
Alfonso Gomez-Rejon directed this one, working from a script adapted by Jesse Andrews from his own novel. From the trailer it has the feel of a Fault In Our Stars mixed with a little Napoleon Dynamite, and it scored both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at this year’s festival while earning some positive ink. The film arrives in the States on June 12 and hits UK cinemas on September 11.