Everything, Everything is an unusual teen romance starring Amandla Stenberg and Nick Robinson.
Stenberg plays Maddy, an eighteen year-old afflicted with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID). It’s a condition similar to AIDS in which she has a severely weakened immune system. Relatively common diseases, like the flu, can kill her.
Maddy lives her entire life inside her hermetically sealed home. Her mother is a doctor and she ensures that Maddy stays healthy and as happy as possible.
Everything is fine, if a little boring, until the cute, goth boy moves in next door! Robinson plays Olly, Maddy’s love interest.
The movie is predictable for the most part. Maddy struggles with her illness, her desire for emotional and physical intimacy with Olly, and wanting to obey her mother’s directives.
It was a fun romance, albeit with an extremely small cast. The exploration of what its like to be a “bubble girl” was also interesting, but I don’t have enough knowledge to deem whether it was accurate or not.
The young actors gave good performances and I’m looking forward to more from them. There was a clear attempt to symbolize character development through costuming changes that I appreciated. The cinematography was also quite good, initially showing Maddy and Olly at a distance, but moving closer in as their relationship also became closer.
Was it a good movie? Yes. Was it a memorable movie? No. Despite being well-made and dealing with a previously unexplored idea, the movie did not capture my interest for days afterward like other greats such as Memento or V for Vendetta.
Maybe that’s because I like action thrillers or maybe its because Everything, Everything simply was not an amazing movie that will last through the ages.
It’s a fine teen romance movie so if that’s what you’re looking for, I recommend it. I don’t think it has enough overall goodness to appeal to people outside of that genre though.
-GoCorral
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