Based on the book by Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything is directed by Stella Meghie and it’s the classic story of a girl (Maddy) who falls in love with the boy next door. The most interesting part of the story for me is the fact that Maddy has been confined to her home since infancy due to illness.

The two main characters in this movie are teenagers played by Amandla Stenberg and Nick Robinson. It’s therefore clear that teenagers are the target demographic; not that that stopped me from being most curious about the story of Maddy’s mother – a character we don’t really get to know too much about. I think that as a non-teenager myself, I’ve in the most part exhausted my interest in most largely-teenage movies. Except maybe in instances where a story is really, truly compelling and well cast.

As far as teenage romances go, I’m quite sure that teenage me would have really enjoyed this movie. Non-teenage me found it OK. Non-teenage me is also very glad that she hadn’t read the book prior to watching this movie. Otherwise there’s a chance that I personally would have found much less to look forward to towards the end.

The thing that stood out most for me about Everything, Everything is that its main stars Stenberg and Robinson are promising young actors. I now find myself looking forward to watching Stenberg in writer / director Ama Asante’s upcoming drama / romance about a bi-racial teenager struggling to survive in Nazi Germany. Yes, yes, I know that it’s yet another teen-centric movie, but it’s Ama Asante. She wrote and directed Belle (2014), don’t you know?

Happy Film Loving

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