Thankfully, Haley ( Hearts Beat Loud, I’ll See You in My Dreams) and composer Keegan DeWitt decline to use the ebullient yet subdued score to lighten the saddest moments of the pic. We see him holding his breath underwater for extended periods of time - in the bathtub, in a swimming hole - but these moments read more like an adventurous teen testing boundaries than one who is seriously contemplating taking his own life. The film version, however, softens the blow of his suicidal ideation by labeling him as “the freak” who is seen as “different” at school. In the novel, Finch is much more explicit in his fascination with death and all the ways he could kill himself. With steady performances from Smith and Fanning, the result is a refreshingly sober spin on the YA romantic drama. Without trying too hard, it speaks to teenagers, and also to the teenagers we all once were, about how to cope with and adapt to those first big losses in life that you don’t see coming. A poignant, even-handed drama that could easily be mistaken for an uber-earnest high-school flick (think Lady Bird meets Love, Simon), the movie from director Brett Haley and writers Niven and Liz Hannah ( The Post) resists any urge to use romance as a panacea for the harsh realities of trauma and mental illness.
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