"Dope" is the stronger of the pair, because it tells its familiar story in a new context. Malcolm Adekanbi (Shameik
Moore) is a black high school senior from a rough area of Southern
California, but is determined to got to Harvard. He and his friends Jib
(Tony Revolori) and Diggy (Kiersey Clemons) identify themselves as
nerds: they get good grades, are obsessed with '90s hip-hop culture, and
are regular targets for the neighborhood bullies and drug dealers.
However, after Malcolm is roped by a dealer named Dom (A$AP Rocky) into
helping woo back his ex-girlfriend Nakia (Zoë Kravitz), the nerds are
forced to juggle drugs, girls, guns, viral videos, and way too much
trouble.
It's easy to be glib, to
describe "Dope" as "Boyz in the Hood" crossed with "Pineapple Express,"
or as a prequel to last year's "Dear White People." It's absolutely
packed with current issues, buzzwords, memes, and other bits of
Millennial pop culture, though the main characters are obsessed with the
'90s. At times, it comes across as trying to hard to hit too many
points at once. However, the characters and their viewpoints feel
genuine, and there's a very appealing lightness to the way a lot of the
topics are handled. Metal detectors and drug searches at school are
played for laughs. Diggy is revealed to be a lesbian, but it's not a
big deal. The big themes and big speeches are held back until the very,
very end of the film where Malcolm tells us what he's learned in a
monologue that feels entirely earned.
On
the other hand, "Dope" is pretty chaotic and uneven, with a few too
many subplots crammed together, a villain who fell completely flat, and
one of the best characters shows up way too late in the movie. Also,
some of the old tropes like Malcolm misreading Nakia's intentions get
very tedious. The execution felt amateurish as often as it hit the
mark, especially in the rocky second act. I'd chalk this up to an
inexperienced director, but Rick Famuyiwa has already made several
well-regarded films like "The Wood" and "Brown Sugar." He nails the
ending well enough that I came away with the film feeling mostly
positive about "Dope," but I find it too flawed to recommend
wholeheartedly. It's an energetic, ambitious feature that I hope
connects to and gives a voice to the right audience, but I don't think I
am the right audience.
"Me and Earl and the
Dying Girl" is a far more familiar kind of independent feature, with a
lot of familiar characters and familiar affectations. Our lead
character, Greg (Thomas Mann), is a white high school senior for the
Pittsburgh area. He's a self-declared lone wolf who only cultivates
superficial connections with others, thereby making himself the most
unobjectionable kid in school. He's been long-term associates (Greg
doesn't like the word "friend") with a black kid named Earl (Ronald
Cyler II), who he makes funny spoofs of classic art films with as a
hobby. Then one day, Greg's mother insists that he go and befriend a
girl in his year named Rachel (Olivia Cooke), who has just been
diagnosed with leukemia. Nick Offerman, Connie Britton, and Molly
Shannon play assorted parents.
This one got a
very warm reception at Sundance earlier in the year, probably
because Greg is a struggling filmmaker and film nerd with impeccable
taste. However, I found it awfully similar to a lot of other films
about teenage boys of the same age and temperament, and not the better
ones. I think whether you're apt to enjoy "Me and Earl and the Dying
Girl" really depends on how much you relate to Greg and his woes.
Personally, I found him to be the least interesting on the three leads,
and Thomas Mann delivers the weakest performance. The film is certainly
well made and has some standout sequences, but it loses so much by
being so tightly focused on Greg and his particular limited view of the
world. Did we really need his glum narration underlining every damn
point?
I liked Olivia Cooke, though, and I
found the portrayal of Rachel's declining physical state to be sensitive
and appropriate. I wish that the movie had been about her and Earl,
with Greg left in the background, perhaps. I liked the little
references to other films, and was grateful to find that they were
fairly minimal to the plot. I even liked the weird little stop-motion
cutaways, though they didn't really add up to much. It's hard to really
object too strongly to "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" because it's
honest and it's well meaning. The climax sequence is perfectly lovely.
But there are an awful lot of other films out there that do nearly
everything here a bit better.
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