With all the negative connotations that label in quotes brings. Constant cuts and obnoxious camera angle switches take away from the story, and when you combine that with the cliches and manipulation... look, I can take cliche and manipulation just fine (I dug A Fault In Our Stars), but the stylistic obnoxiousness reeeeeeally pushes it over the edge.

On top of that, it's a classic "white kid learns how to live from poor oversexed fight-ready drug-savvy black guy, endlessly patient and giving and pixie-ish cancer girl, and name actors as teachers/parents who act like themselves and dole out wisdom and the occasional laugh" story. We've seen these elements a ton, and while the acting is fine (mostly from Earl and the dying girl, as Thomas Mann is fairly charisma-less), the story's self-awareness doesn't make up for the fact that the characters don't ever really transcend their foundation in cliche. Movies like this rely on the characters really breathing, and the movie doesn't give us enough time fleshing out Earl or the dying girl-- we just get the occasional factoids our main character spouts. Any amount of appeal they generate is rooted in the performers doing good work.

Sorry, bwood. Definitely not for me, and objectively I really struggle to see this generating any sort of awards buzz outside of maybe the Spirits. It'll be divided heavily between the people who buy in to what it's selling and the people who violently reject it. My gut reaction puts me closer to the latter camp.

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