This year, I have decided to set a goal of watching at least one film and reviewing it each week. The film can’t be ‘picked’ from any reviews (e.g. it has to be something that just appears in front of me) and I can’t stop watching it halfway through. I think that there’s always something that you can learn… even if it’s a ‘do not’. Additionally, I want to explore genres that I would usually not watch.
The film I picked this week was ‘All the Bright Places’, simply because it was being promoted on Netflix. It’s a fairly stereotypical small-town America film, following two struggling high school students. Finch has always been the ‘weird kid’, obsessed with death and dubbed a ‘freak’, while Violet suffers from survivors guilt after her sister died the previous year. In true young adult fashion, the two find each other (on the edge of a ledge, no less) and pull each other through the messiness.
What the film did do well, was remain realistic. I would hesitate to say that the content was handled extraordinarily well, but it was handled better than many other teen dramas. There wasn’t a moment in which Violet realised that Finch loved her, and magically got better. She pushed him away, he let her down. She lets him down. Violet starts getting better, but Finch only get worse. He has every opportunity to reach out to his guidance councilor, but he refuses to take it. Meanwhile, Violet has every opportunity to reach out to him… but she doesn’t.
Perhaps it was because she realised that she couldn’t save him, perhaps she simply didn’t realise, didn’t want to be the support for a broken man her entire life.
Either way; when she finally gets better, Finch takes his life.
Keeping in mind that the film is a teen flick – and therefore has to shelter specific subjects – All the Bright Places manages to balance the heavy subject of teen suicide and depression with the lighter theme of romance. It was by no means perfect, but compared to most other Young Adult fiction, it does it well enough. It refuses to become breezy and dismissive, yet manages to hold onto some hope. I did find the framing device of the geography project a little much – forced just so Violet could get her expositional speech at the end – but given the target audience, I think it fit. The film is broadcasting tough subject matter to an impressionable audience, so you don’t want them getting the wrong impression.
Which perhaps, is why there were many moments that felt forced – they were forced, so there would be no misunderstanding. Additionally, some of the cheesy components – teenagers quoting old poets to each other – did do one thing – and that was keep the interest of the target audience. They need things to relate too – which was another component that the film did well. The characters were very relatable. Both had their sadness, which they mostly hid from the outside world – something that teen audiences relate too.
At the end of the day, All the Bright Places wouldn’t be a film that I would choose to watch. It’s the wrong genre, and a romance. There were elements of the film that weren’t handled well, but it was also a realistic (though dramatized) portrayal of teen life, and one that should be able to get through to teenage audiences.
