Me And Earl.... will easily prove to be one of the best films of 2015, and its moderate box-office suggests that a lot of people are going to miss out on this absolutely wonderful movie. The performances from both the younger cast (Thomas Mann gives a superb performance in the central role, RJ Cyler so natural as his 'co-worker' Earl, and Olivia Cooke poised and sympathetic as the 'dying girl') and the adults (Connie Britton, Jon Bernthal, Mollie Shannon and the scene-stealing Nick Offerman all do wonderful and hugely enjoyable character work) are uniformly exemplary. If The Fault In Our Stars was the Hollywood-ised treatment of teen terminal illness, Me And Earl... is the more lo-fi but credible take on the issue. Aside from the dramatic through-story, there is so much to enjoy: the movie is very film-literate, with the boys' fixation on classic arthouse movies and their own 'Sweded' parodies of them; direction and editing show real creativity and thought; and even what could have been the stereotypical high-school-cliques scenes are given a refreshing honesty and deadpan humour. The transition in tone as the movie progresses is so skilfully handled that it comes as quite a shock to suddenly realise how far the viewer has been swept along on this genuinely emotional journey. The last twenty minutes are desperately poignant and unfold so beautifully that only those with hearts of stone will leave the cinema unmoved.
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