Producers: Denise Di Novi, Margaret French Isaac, Josephine Decker and Allison Rose Carter Director: Josephine Decker Screenplay: Jandy Nelson Cast: Grace Kaufman, Pico Alexander, Jacques Colimon, Julia Schlaepfer, Ji-young Yoo, Havana Rose Liu, Tyler Lofton, Cherry Jones and Jason Segel Distributor: A24 Films and Apple+
Grade: C
Manufacturing movie enchantment is a delicate business; try too hard, and the result comes out like a fallen soufflé. That’s unhappily the case with Josephine Decker’s adaptation of Jandy Nelson’s 2010 YA novel, which boasts a script by the author herself but is filled to overflowing with the director’s flights of visual fancy. “The Sky Is Everywhere” winds up as a quite simple story of a young girl’s grief that’s smothered in a riot of overbearing imagery.
Lennie Walker (Grace Kaufman) is a high-school senior, a gifted clarinetist devastated by the sudden loss of her older sister Bailey (Havana Rose Liu), who collapsed while playing Juliet in a production of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Inconsolable even by the loving grandmother (Cherry Jones) who raised her after her parents’ deaths along with her gregarious Uncle Big (Jason Segel), Lennie tries to cope by writing poems about Bailey on various surfaces and scraps of paper and sending them flying into the wind. She has fits of weeping while remembering the times she and Bailey spent together gamboling through the woods and swimming in the lake, and regrets the harsh words she spoke out of jealousy when Bailey became more distant after meeting Toby (Pico Alexander), with whom she developed a powerful romance.
Now Lennie’s going back to classes. She’s warmly received by her garrulous best friend Sarah (Ji-young Yoo), but finds that her ability to play has suddenly disappeared—a fact quickly taken advantage of by mean girl Rachel (Julia Schlaepfer), second-chair clarinetist in the honors band, who challenges Lennie for the top spot in the group. Lennie gives up without a fight, since in her depression she’s decided to quit anyway.
There is, however, someone who will make a difference in her life—handsome new student Joe Fontaine (Jacques Colimon), expert on trumpet and guitar, who’s anxious to get to know her. True, Rachel’s interested in him too, but it’s Lennie he takes a special shine to. He seeks her out as a musical collaborator, and the feelings between them grow.
Their relationship is made difficult, though, by the constant presence of Toby, with whom Lennie shares her grief over Bailey—and perhaps something more. Joe’s been hurt in a previous relationship—he walked in on a scene between his former girlfriend and his roommate—and has vowed never to be betrayed that way again. You can guess what happens.
The emotional trajectory of “The Sky is Everywhere” is more complicated than is the case in most YA novels, and Lennie’s psychological turmoil more complex. Kaufman’s portrayal of her is fairly successful in expressing the character’s shifting moods, and both Jones and Segel are expert in conveying the love of the family members who are trying to help her through her trauma, though Uncle Big’s eccentricity is played at rather too high a level.
Even in the domestic moments, however, Decker feels it necessary to employ visual exaggeration to accentuate the emotional volume. And elsewhere she lets loose with abandon. When music takes over, animated notes fly onto the screen, and characters literally float into the air. The images often burst into acres of flowers. Lennie’s flashbacks take on the glow of hallucination rather than remembrance. We’re meant to be transported by all of this hubbub, but in most cases it simply detracts from the emotional essence of the tale.
The supporting characters are also subject to such flamboyant treatment. Alexander’s Toby is so moonily tormented as to be a cliché, and Schlaepfer no less obvious as Lennie’s tormentor. But Colimon’s Joe is probably the worst offender. The actor is an engaging presence, but he’s directed to depict Joe as so perfect, so open-faced in his desire to please, that it’s almost laughable; and Tyler Lofton, as his brother Marcus, is portrayed as just as incredibly frantic and antic. Perhaps we’re meant to understand them all—along with Yoo as her best buddy and Liu as her beloved sister—as Lennie sees them. That doesn’t, however, rescue the overwrought interpretations.
Of course, given Decker’s approach the technical team has a field day—in many respects literally, given all the outdoor scenes. Production designer Grace Yun goes all out in the more imaginative moments, and so does cinematographer Ava Berkofsky; the effects and animation artists are no less hyperactive. Laura Zempel’s editing adds to the stop-and-start, hectic-and-lugubrious feel, as does Caroline Shaw’s jangly score.
For some Decker’s visual extravagance may be transporting, but it weighs far too heavily on Nelson’s fragile tale of a teen’s recovery from traumatic loss.