Review: Everything, Everything

Dienstag, 15. August 2017

Everything, Everything
Release Year: 2017
Length: 96 minutes
Cast: Amandla Stenberg (Maddy Whittier)
Nick Robinson (Olly Bright)
Anika Noni Rose (Dr. Whittier)
Ana de la Reguera (Carla)

   A teenage girl (Amandla Stenberg) is unable to leave her home because she has an immunodeficiency that makes her allergic to almost everything. However, her life changes for the better when she begins to communicate with the boy next door (Nick Robinson). Everything, Everything was directed by Stella Meghie, and was adapted from the YA novel of the same name by Nicola Yoon. (rottentomatoes.com)


   If you've read my trailer reaction post, you know that I've been skeptical of this movie from the get go. The trailer spoiled a lot of the movie, and after watching it, I can say it probably showed all the best bits and really it was kind of enough. As someone who read the book, and loved it, I knew exactly what would happen so I was rather watching it to see how they've translated this book that I loved into a movie I hoped to at least like.
   Unfortunately that didn't happen. I really wanted to like it, enjoy it, but in the end I unfortunately didn't.

   Everything, Everything is very much a teenage movie, another coming-of-age story starring good actors playing in nice sets with pretty dialogues and all of that. That is of course totally fine, the movie isn't trying to be more than that, but something was lacking for me in it from beginning to end. As I said I liked the actors, though maybe they weren't like the best actors in Hollywood as of right now, but they were convincing enough. The dialogues were okay, too, with a few funny bits that did make me chuckle, but also a lot of it that just came across a bit too forced for my liking and to be natural.
   The sets and places we get to see in the movie are great. Seeing the house, getting a visual representation of his bubble in which Maddy grew up, the airlock entrance and everything, that was amazing. It was a stylish high-tech house that didn't seem too over the top but like a house I'd love to live in. Then we also had the other place, that I won't spoil even though we see it in the trailer, but it's undoubtedly beautiful.
   Speaking of which, a lot of the movie is exactly that: beautiful. All the clean rooms that don't really look lived in at all, nice and clean windows, wrinkle free clothes. What Everything, Everything really lacks is this feeling of reality. It all just feels like some kind of fairytale were everything is easy and perfect, an even if something goes wrong, there are only small short complications and we swiftly move on to the next thing.
   We know that Maddy is sick, it's the first thing we find out, yet throughout the whole movie everything lacked this sense of danger. Even when she walked outside, we had her mom panicking and it still wan't one of those moments that would push you onto the edge of your seat in suspense and worry of what would happen to her now. It was just kind of...there? The metaphore with the astronaut, that Maddy could identify with him, it was another one of those pretty things, but it unfortunately got lost somewhere along the way and just felt like it was randomly thrown in there a few times without having any real meaning to things.

   All in all I really hoped that the movie would surprise me and be fun and enjoyable, a nice YA book-to-movie adaptation you could sit down and watch with friends and have a nice time. But unfortunately I found myself feeling bored in a lot of places, or just sighing because of some odd turn of events or wondering how some of it was possible exactly. I know there are a lot of people who loved the movie, and maybe it is a good one, but it simply wasn't for me even though I really had high hopes for it.
I give Everything, Everything 2.5 out of 5 stars.