Film Review: "The Sky Is Everywhere" (2022).

"Grief and love; we don't get one without the other" in The Sky Is Everywhere. This teen romance drama directed by Josephine Decker, adapted by Jandy Nelson, and based on her novel of the same title. Tucked among the magical redwood trees of Northern California and surrounded by her grandmother’s gargantuan roses, 17-year-old Lennie Walker, a radiant musical prodigy, struggles with overwhelming grief following the sudden loss of her older sister, Bailey. When Joe Fontaine, the charismatic new guy at school, enters Lennie’s life, she’s drawn to him. But Lennie’s complicated relationship with her sister’s devastated boyfriend, Toby, starts to affect Lennie and Joe’s budding love. Through her vivid imagination and honest, conflicted heart, Lennie navigates first love and first loss to create a song of her own.

In August 2015, Warner Bros. Pictures acquired film adaptation rights to Nelson's 2010 novel. The film was originally set to star Selena Gomez, with her serving as an executive producer as well through her production company. In October 2019, it was announced A24 and Apple TV+ would produce the film, with Decker hired to direct, and Nelson penning the adaptation. In July 2020, Grace Kaufman joined the cast of the film, in the lead role of Lennie. By October Jason Segel, Cherry Jones and Pico Alexander rounded out the film's cast. At the same time, principal photography commenced and wrapped in late November. Filming took place in Eureka, California.

The film stars Kaufman, Segel, Jones and Alexander. Kaufman and the cast's performances are showstopping-ranging over a striking spectrum from muted passivity to explosive chaos-and are reminiscent of gripping theater.

The film's depiction of a grieving teenager's perception of other teenagers, and themselves, is crucial. The director presents us with the honest truth we are our harshest critics. With that, Kaufman and Colimon's duo dazzles. As it is, the film is the perfect storm of Decker's style and technique and the cast's talents, creating a vortex that'll leave your head spinning. A subjective and engaging character study that's daring, disarming, dark and, unsurprisingly, anchored by a pitch-perfect Kaufman. The film is an engaging drama, which explores the intricacies of teenage relationships and roles in a considered, compelling - and stylish - manner. The proposal is effective, although so much excess is at times unnecessary, especially when you have a very good actress and she's portraying a writer who is so fond of forcefulness and narrative clarity. Decker's adaptation presents the psychosexual obsession, but the salacity feels perfunctory rather than passionate. While it's clear that the is supposed to be a type of psychological teen romance drama, the way its story is told and the imagery used to tell it make it less than compelling. Overall, the film displays a mastery of the medium in a story that defies easy and precise articulation. Her portrait of the creative process as an atmospheric thriller is subversively spooky in a way Lennie Walker herself would approve.

Simon says The Sky Is Everywhere receives:

Also, see my review for Shirley.