52 Films by Women Vol 2. 41. EVERYTHING EVERYTHING (Director: Stella Meghie)
Everything, Everything, directed
by Stella Meghie (Jean of the Joneses) is adapted by screenwriter J. Mills
Goodloe (Age of Adaline) from the debut ‘young adult’ (YA) novel by
Nicola Yoon, first published in 2015. It deals with an eighteen year old girl, Maddy
(Amandla Stenberg) who has a genetic disorder known as SCID – Severe Combined
Immunodeficiency Disorder. The disease is rare but real – it is also known as bubble
baby disease. The most famous ‘bubble baby’ was David Vetter, born in 1971 but
died twelve years later. His condition inspired the John Travolta TV movie, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, which
aired in 1976. In real life, children born with David’s condition can live
normal lives, thanks to a breakthrough in treating SCID which was achieved in
2002. This involved a two year old Palestinian girl, Salsabil, being treated
with non-myeloblative conditioning. The process involves isolating
haematopoietic blood cells and reprogramming them to contain the adenosine
deaminase gene. You can read the account in https://www.yourgenome.org/stories/treating-the-bubble-babies-gene-therapy-in-use.
The film of Yoon’s novel imagines that this 2002 case
history was not available to Maddy, which is fair enough. However, the idea
that folks can regularly come and go in Maddy’s home, sealed from the outside
world by a single airlock, is scarcely believable. You want to know how the
oxygen in the home is cleaned and how visitors are sterilised before entering
Maddy’s space – we see them washing their hands, but is that enough? You have
to suspend disbelief, but then the YA genre gave us vampires and werewolves in
Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series and
dystopias in The Hunger Games. Incidentally, the two stars of Everything, Everything, Stenberg and
Nick Robinson, have the leading roles in two forthcoming films of YA novels, The Darkest Minds, from Kung Fu Panda 2 director Jennifer Yuh
Nelson, and Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens
Agenda, directed by Greg Berlanti (TV’s
The Flash) respectively.
Maddy has never left home. She has been home-schooled. She
corresponds with other kids with SCID over the internet. Of course, she has
never been in love. All this changes when a new family moves next door. Olly
(Robinson) and his sister bring over a torte. It is something they are
encouraged to do – a kind of tortious interference. Maddy’s mother, a Doctor no
less (Anika Noni Rose) declines it but asks Olly to thank his mother. Olly and
Maddy then exchange texts. The relationship is encouraged by the home help,
Carla (Ana de la Reguera). Before long, Olly is allowed a supervised visit.
Then he tempts Maddy with the ocean and she decides to risk her health – and
her mother not noticing that she has ordered a credit card – to fly to Hawaii
for a one and only vacation with Olly.
I don’t want to spoil what happens next, but there is a
certain logic that is only apparent later. The film is about love emboldening
people to take big steps. It deals summarily with the consequences of such
action. The drama hinges on Olly idolising Maddy and Maddy seeing that Olly’s
own life is far from glamorous, with a father who keeps losing his job, forcing
the family to move constantly. There is a fairy tale set-up inherent in the
story too. Maddy is like Rapunzel or any princess trapped in a tower. But she
isn’t rescued. Instead she chooses to leave of her own volition.
Buoyed by two charming leads – the film would collapse if
Stenberg and Robinson didn’t have chemistry – it is at its best when Maddy
first leaves her house and the soundtrack is delicately heightened. We
appreciate that from every step onward, every sound and sight would be new to
her. A ride in a car- let alone an aeroplane – would be unusual and Maddy would
have no idea or normal speed.
Strangely though, for all the fact-based set-up, the drama
is unmoving; the film has none of emotional impact of last year’s Me Before You, another disability based
love story, starring Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin. Here, the set-up is perhaps
too fantastic and the second half of the film rests on a twist. Pleasingly,
though, it is entirely a female-led drama, with every decision that drives the
action initiated by female characters, complete with English nurse Janet
(Marion Eisman). In this sense, Everything,
Everything is a satisfying movie. It doesn’t capture your heart but the
sentiments feel right.
Reviewed at Kinepolis
Ghent, Screen Six, Belgium, Saturday 19 August 2017, 19:45 screening. At the
end of the performance, the audience put their litter in bins provided at the
front of the cinema. Incredible!
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