Everything Everything - (Spoiler) Film Review

Based on the book EVERYTHING EVERYTHING by Nicola Yoon, Stella Meghie directs a beautiful film to tell the beautiful story that had already caught my heart in paper form. Supposedly released in the UK on the 19th May, I finally had the exciting experience of watching it last week and was literally jumping in my seat because I'd waited so long to see it. I'd read the book in 2015, fallen in love completely, been moved by Nicola Yoon's debut, and followed all the production of the film over 2016, the interest coming from being an ex film student.

Set in Los Angeles, EVERYTHING EVERYTHING tells the story of Maddy, a girl who's been sick all her life and has never left her home since being diagnosed with SCID (Severe Combined Immune Deficiency). The film opens with Maddy's voice-over, telling the audience why she likes a certain room in her house. The room is open, decorated with outdoor pictures, with floor-to-ceiling glass windows. She likes it because it makes her feel like she's outside. Playing the part of Maddy, Amandla Stenberg gives a convincing and innocent performance of a girl who's been trapped and, bit by bit, discovers what freedom is when she meets Olly, the boy next door.

Honestly, Nick Robinson, for me, was an unsure choice for Olly. For one, I found it strange how much his shaved head is made a thing of in the book, yet in the film, Olly has long hair. It worked though. I loved the slight differences I could spot from the two versions. I hadn't seen Nick Robinson in a role like this to imagine how he would play the part. He has played awkward characters in previous things and I felt like book-Olly was easy-going. But he brought a slightly different (and charmingly awkward at times) Olly to the screen, one that I enjoyed watching. The film gave a more insistent side to him, which I loved to see.

There are scenes in this film, between Olly and Maddy, where they talk before they meet. He writes messages on large boards for her to read, making her smile. He writes out his number on his window from which they begin proper communication. This brings a charming aspect of reality-to-imagination for the two, where they meet in their head, in Maddy's diner that she's building with the help of an online architecture class. Everything they exchange over text is conversed in their imagination, face-to-face. "Ellipses," Maddy says often, when she's thinking or doesn't want to respond to something. These parts had me grinning in my seat, adoring what I was watching and seeing the relationship start to unfold.

Because of her condition, everything has to be sterilized for Maddy. There's an air suction room from the front door, to take any outside air away when someone enters the house. Carla, sweet and humorous at times, played by Ana de la Reguera, is Maddy's nurse, who works alongside her Mum, whose profession is a doctor. Pauline is performed with excellent talent by Anika Noni Rose. Maddy's mum is riddled with concern for her daughter, engaging the audience with the fact that Maddy truly is sick, believable because she's a medical professional. She's a serious woman who tries to be lighter, more fun, for her daughter but struggles being the mum Maddy needs following the death of her husband and son. Maddy's condition ensures she has clothes specially washed and all in plain, white material. Perhaps it was that aspect that caused it but the film had a pure feel to it that made it all the more believable. So when Maddy finally learns that she can be free, it was more of a shock (even when I was expecting it to happen) when she packs new clothes (once discovering how easy a credit card is to obtain for online shopping) and leaves to go to Hawaii with Olly.

It's when they leave that really gripped me. This is where the commendations really go to the cinematographer, Ludwig Goransson, because not only did they film in a beautiful place but everything was so incredibly portrayed against the amazing beach setting. In the car, going to their hotel, Maddy finally sees the ocean for the first time and she's so enthralled by it, and that's the film's moment. She's always wanted to see the ocean and she's waited eighteen years to do so, beyond looking at photographs. Maddy has gripped her freedom with both hands, risked her life for it, and now she's finally where she wants and feels she needs to be.

In Hawaii, Maddy finds physical love, honest love, herself and a life. She finds happiness and peace, miles and miles away from her fancy cage that kept her healthy. Yet she went to Hawaii and you end up watching, waiting for something to happen. You want to believe the beauty and the free sense of it but you know something is going to shatter that perfect image. And it does: Maddy collapses one morning and is rushed to hospital, her illness catching up. After this incident, she's sent back to the empty home she can't face anymore now that she knows what it's like to be outside. Carla has been fired due to her part in helping Maddy and Olly meet, against Pauline's wishes. Thinking that there's no future for them, Maddy and Olly have a scene--again, via texting but together in their minds--where she desperately explains why they can't pursue anything, that she can't leave the house. Olly tries to talk to her further but she keeps on saying, "Ellipses," until she fades away from him, ending their contact. She deletes any emails he sends--including one important one, saying that he's moving away again, which Maddy watches the process of out of the window.

But then Maddy gets an email from the doctor who saw to her in Hawaii: she doesn't have SCID. She collapsed due to a viral infection. She does have a very weak immune system but not to the extent that her mother has let her believe. Amandla turns Maddy from a pliant, innocent girl to an emotional one when the truth comes crashing down on her, guiding an audience to sympathise with the lie she's been told all her life. Maddy raids her mum's office, looking for her files on SCID but when she finds nothing, she confronts her mum and the truth comes out: she'd been afraid to lose Maddy after the death of her husband and son, so she used one bout of sickness years ago to build on it, to keep her close. Too close. Her emotion turns to sheer anger as Maddy leaves the house properly and finds her nurse who was her closest friend.

On a risk, she texts Olly, telling him to meet her at Ye Olde Book Shoppe, where she explains everything to a bewildered Olly, who opens his heart to her again now that they can both see a future together. The film ends with them walking on a busy New York street, smiling and laughing together, a beautiful shot to explain what lies ahead for them: hope, happiness, love.

In conclusion, EVERYTHING EVERYTHING is a five-star, pure, stunning film that addresses a completely different, intriguing concept, with each actor bringing their own individuality to the screen where a production crew has worked incredibly hard to make it the awing visual it is.

EVERYTHING AROUND US - In Progress.

“Is it not just nice to imagine? To collect thoughts and versions of what the world could be like and use that as fuel to create?”

            “Create what?” I asked, my voice rising harshly. “Unhappiness because those ideals will never happen?”

***

Contrary to the snippet above from my current WIP, I'm a massive believer in imagining other versions of myself. Is it weird to be able to pin-point the exact moment your life kind of went downhill? I can, and it was weird. It was something I couldn't adjust to and have fallen prey to. So I planned to write a book, out of my comfort zone, to deal with it. I knew I wanted it to have truthful situations I knew I'd be able to realistically write about. But it was going to be another version of me. I wanted to write a boy suffering with anxiety and relying on something creative. I wanted to use my knowledge of film-making which has just been tumbling round in my head since I left college last year.

I left it as a really weak idea for months before I even named my male protagonist. But in December, I watched an episode of The Vampire Diaries and listened to Concrete Angel and suddenly, I saw this boy in my head, and the song became something to me. The lyrics turned into thoughts and I  viewed how he saw a girl that he wanted to befriend. He wanted to reach her but they both had their own boundaries, and the girl had a good reason to put up her walls.

Hazel came to me in tiny bits. Her trademark ballcap fashion came first, slightly inspired from a friend I used to have. Her attitude came from another song (Cider by Yezi), and I went from there to build an image of the girl who'd oppose Nicholas and tell her own story.

EVERYTHING AROUND US follows both their POVs, to see their struggles and the different people they find in a small film club. In total, there are only five people (including them), largely underestimated by the leader of the group who missed his shot at being on a lighting team in Hollywood. So they only end up making one short film. This story is about inspiring each of the five to look beyond the ugliness they see in their worlds and find beauty, and to capture it.

Hazel finds it hardest to adjust. Taken from another friend, I made her restless. I made her a free spirit who found it hard to sit still or stay in one place, to go where her feet took her when she wanted. But she finds her place there eventually, as each of the others do. They find that they have a place, that they're needed to make something bigger, which is what they've always missed.

The club coaxes Nicholas to deal with his anxiety rather than just sit and waste away in his room, pondering over a fulfilled past. Anxiety is something I've not dealt well this past year and I've used that in Nicholas to see how he handles it, to see the support he gets and what he does from that. Hazel comes from a family that has slowly broken down because of something she did three years prior to the start of the story, and her side is fun and free to explore. The other three all add so much life and exploration to the story: Stuart, who can't decide on how he wants to look and relies on the opinions of others to guide him because of his own past; Hank who hates his name and switches from being called Dean or Alex depending on his days, who has a lot of parental pressure to be academically clever when he just wants to explore; Ailee, a girl who wants to fly and make art but got rejected from her dream school and finds the club as another creative avenue.

This story is in the drafting process and incredibly close to me. I'm taking situations I know or have seen and making them into something I can work through and find answers to. Through it, I'm finding old passions again and showing that I'm a lot more than just a person who sits at their desk and writes and that's all. I've lived and explored and whilst that may not be the case so much now, I will again because if I can write it, I'll believe it and become inspired by it.