With COVID-19 being the only thing on anyones’ mind as it continues to spread and dominate every facet of life, its’ a relief to have a means of distraction in art and entertainment; and as much as I worry it’ll kill the theatre industry when this is all over, streaming is really a blessing during this time. There are so many options to turn to and so much content to occupy our thoughts and attentions that they can really make our home-bound existence more bearable. Most importantly, new stuff is still dropping there (though this too is impermanent).
For my interests though, I first decided to check out the new Brett Haley movie on Netflix, All the Bright Places, based on the book by Jennifer Niven, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Liz Hannah. His follow-up to the astoundingly endearing Hearts Beat Loud, it’s a teenage romance set in Indiana about two kids starting a relationship as they each battle mental illness, that seems to be aiming to be something resembling a John Green story with a dash of Makoto Shinkai. An honest look at the effects of teenage trauma and bipolar disorder, it’s got a really noble aim, though the execution just misses the mark.
Frontloaded with the kind of twee high school context that you might see in an early 2000s family movie or out-of-touch cable special, wherein Theodore Finch (Justice Smith) is bullied for being a “freak”, and he and Violet Markey (Elle Fanning) bond through an overarching “Wander Indiana” assignment about finding neat or idiosyncratic places in the state, the more serious subject matter gradually developed over the course of the movie has a harder time translating effectively until about the third act when it’s fully able to take precedence. But what impedes this further is an often apparent discomfort with the weighty issues its’ tackling. Generally, it’s unafraid to shy away from dealing with Violet’s survivors’ guilt, having been a victim of a horrible car accident that killed her older sister, partially due to Finch taking it upon himself to be her therapist, frequently pushing her to open up about such things. But there’s no such openness with him.
That’s the point of course, highlighting how the otherwise outgoing Finch has these tendencies to retreat into himself, to avoid the very prompts he pressures upon Violet, and to close himself off, disappearing for days at a time. And yet in showcasing his troubles this way, the film struggles to articulate its central statement -it doesn’t really know what it’s trying to say about mental health. It might almost fetishize these issues in portraying them as a major source of the protagonists’ romance and particularly the way the ailment of one by the end inspires a kind of enlightenment in the other. There’s nothing genuinely meaningful it succeeds at communicating; there’s never an effort to consult learned professionals to grow through or heal their maladies. We’re just watching them fester and the characters suffer while occasionally waxing poetic.
Finch’s condition also gets in the way of certain aspects of his intended sympathy. After meeting her in the middle of a suicide attempt, Finch goes out of his way to get closer to Violet, beginning with choosing her as his partner for the major project. And through the early stages of their relationship he’s often inappropriately presumptuous and his disorder can’t wholly excuse that. He spends a night sleeping on her lawn for example, and their first make-out scene is precipitated by a slightly creepy impulse to stop their car on the highway.
Smith and Fanning have good chemistry though, as destined for failure as their characters’ relationship may be. In a series of isolated sequences they make for a decent couple and perform their parts realistically. Though a side-effect of the films’ focus being so insular is that few other characters in the film matter at all. We never see for instance how the same grief Violet suffers is affecting her parents (Kelli O’Hara and Luke Wilson), and Finch’s only family appears to be his older sister played by a thoroughly wasted Alexandra Shipp (Keegan-Michael Key is also given a nothing part as a terrible school psychiatrist). These familial relationships are merely skimmed over, as are the protagonists’ other friendships, including one girl later revealed to be suffering from bulimia -a naked prop for the movies’ awareness campaign.
In spite of these issues with the films’ central theme and characters, it is awfully well directed though. Haley is quite good at drawing emotionality out of his young actors without the need for much dialogue, and with his regular composer Keegan DeWitt, who’d previously written the music and songs for Hearts Beat Loud, creates a really warm mood in a number of scenes that is both beautiful and calming. He probably incorporates a few too many montages in this film that come off as maybe a cheaper ploy for sentimentality, but they’re well-constructed montages and the music again plays a large part in their effectiveness.
I believe All the Bright Places really means well and wants to shine a light on how mental health and surviving trauma impacts teenagers. But it doesn’t do nearly enough to meaningfully address these issues, content to present their effects at surface level and it’s ultimate message is mostly platitudes. I haven’t read Nivens’ book, but it’s apparently written subjectively from the alternating points of view of both characters, presumably meaning readers get plenty of insight into their thoughts, feelings, and worldviews as their relationship unfolds. Almost none of that translates to screen and the movie suffers for it. And sadly to those teens who the film is ostensibly for, I can’t see them connecting with it or finding much comfort in its half-hearted illustration of the kind of struggles they are profoundly more familiar with.
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