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When "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" opens in Minnesota this weekend, filmgoers will have a chance to see one of the most promising releases of the summer.

 
A favorite of the Sundance Film Festival, the movie explores a high school senior's relationship with a classmate who is dying of cancer.

 
Greg is trying to slip through to graduation as anonymously as possible. But that's not going to happen, as his mom has given him an assignment. She wants him to hang out with Rachel, a classmate he hardly knows, who has just learned she has leukemia. It's something neither of them want.

 
"Look, it's OK," Rachel says when Greg turns up in her home. "Honestly, I'm fine. Just go."

 
"Rachel, just listen to me for a second," Greg responds. "My mom is going to turn my life into a living hell if I don't hang out with you. I can't overstate how annoying she is being about this. She's basically like the LeBron James of nagging. LeBron James plays basketball..."


 
"I know who LeBron James is," Rachel snaps back.
 


"I know I'm not doing you any favors here," Greg pleads. "What I'm asking is for you to do me a favor."

 
When Rachel agrees to let Greg hang out for the day, an unlikely friendship begins.

 
The movie is based on the 2013 novel by Jesse Andrews, who also wrote the screenplay. Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon said its unusual qualities, unique rhythm and beautiful dialogue immediately attracted him.

 
"I was quite moved by it," Gomez-Rejon said. "It was a story I needed to tell."

 
As the film progresses, audiences experience Greg's impressively dry wit but learn he resists personal attachments. His best friend is Earl, although he won't describe him as such, calling him a coworker instead.

 
Earl, who has a machine-gun style of humor, has theories about Greg's hang-ups

 
"It might be his folks," Earl says. "I mean, dude's mom always telling him how handsome he is — which he ain't. So now he think he can't trust anybody close to him. Dude's weird dad don't socialize with anyone 'cept the cat. Bottom line, dude's terrified of calling somebody his friend and they saying, 'Hey bro, I'm not your friend.' Then he have to kill himself."

 
Earl and Greg do work together in a way. They make movies, deliberately awful remakes of art films such as "A Sockwork Orange, "Senior Citizen Cane" and "My Dinner with Andre the Giant."

 
Greg's life grows complicated when one of the school's popular girls browbeats him into making a film for Rachel, whose health is deteriorating.

 
That also resonated with Gomez-Rejon, whose father had just died. The director realized he was looking for a way to deal with his loss.

 
"My dad was one of the funniest people I will ever meet, so it was a fun way to honor him with humor," he said. "By making a movie for him, that was the only way to express my love for him. You know Greg makes a film for Rachel as well, and it's kind of a bigger version of that little one."

 
But "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" is no maudlin exploration. While the horrors of serious illness are a staple of young adult stories, Gomez-Rejon said he worked hard to steer away from cliché.

 
He said the movie isn't exclusively a story for young people.

 
"Something happens at the end of the film, in the last 20 minutes or so," he said. "It is this kind of visual trip, a sound, musical journey — and a lot of people bring to it their own narratives." 

 
While Gomez-Rejon said his narrative is about his father, he's been delighted to hear from audiences how people of many different ages have found the story reminds them of difficult times in their own lives — while also making them laugh. He said capturing the right tone was tough.

 
Even one wrongly placed note in the music score, the director said, might have destroyed everything he was trying to create.

 
When asked how he'll define success, Gomez-Rejon said just creating the film is enough.

 
"Anything that comes after this is just, you know, icing," he said.

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Euan Kerr

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A favorite of the Sundance Film Festival, the movie explores a high school senior's relationship with a classmate who is dying of cancer.

'Me and Earl and the Dying Girl' is youthful and serious

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