Thursday, March 8, 2018

Movie Review: "Every Day" (2018)

Director: Michael Sucsy
Year: 2018
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 1 hour, 35 minutes

A teenage girl falls in love with a person who wakes up in a different body every day.

Did anyone even know this movie existed before it was released in theaters? Hardcore fans of the book may have been aware of its existence, but we saw absolutely no marketing for it. "Every Day" is directed by Michael Sucsy. Sucsy has only directed one other theatrically released film, and that's the romantic drama "The Vow." It is written by Jesse Andrews, who wrote the book and the screenplay for "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl." This time, Andrews has adapted a novel by David Leviathan rather than his own work. The film stars Angourie Rice as a teenage girl named Rhiannon. In this story, she leads a pretty conventional high school life. One day, her life completely changes when she falls in love with a person called 'A,' played by far too many people to list. Every single day, A wakes up in a different person's body, making an ongoing relationship with Rhiannon extremely difficult. Still, she and A try to make it work despite the obvious difficulties.

Every year, Hollywood puts out a schmaltzy teen romance movie where characters are presented with a unique set of problems to work around to show and love conquers all. Usually, that problem is a terminal disease or another rare ailment. Once in a while, a sci-fi fantasy-themed romance like this one gets released, movies like "About Time" or "The Time Travellers Wife," which are both about time travel and oddly enough both star Rachel McAdams. "Every Day," however, is not about time travel, but rather about an entity that jumps from body to body on a daily basis. This concept is what makes "Every Day" unique because it gets to explore love beyond the physical aspect of it. It deals with themes including true love being on the inside, that it doesn't matter what the person you love looks like or what social label we want to slap on them, it only matters how you feel about them. Throughout the movie, A jumps from man to woman, from a straight person to a gay person to a transgender person, to a disabled person, and into just about every ethnicity, black, white, Asian, Pacific Islander, bi-racial. Still, through it all, the only constant is A's love for Rihannon and her mutual love for A. Is it cheesy at times? Absolu-freakin'-lutely. Is it sappy and melodramatic? Of course it is, painfully so at times. Still, this underlying message of universal acceptance helps elevate this otherwise basic teen romantic melodrama into something a little bit more symbolic and hefty.

"Every Day" is the kind of movie we would encourage our nieces and nephews to watch because the message is just that important. Angourie Rice also puts on a great lead performance, so it doesn't feel like such a grating slog. Despite some editing problems (audio and otherwise), if you or your kids are fans of teenage romance movies, "Every Day" will probably be right up your alley.

My Rating: 6/10
BigJ's Rating: 6/10
IMDB's Rating: ~5.9/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: ~64%
Do we recommend this movie: Sure, why not?

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