Book to Screen – Everything Everything

 

Hey Everyone!

Super sorry about the lack of posts recently. It’s officially finals week and I’m slowly drowning in papers.

As a bit of self-care, Audris from YABookmark and I went to go see Everything Everything this past weekend. Oh my gosh, this movie was SO CUTE. We’re still gushing about it.

I read this book a couple of weeks ago and thought it was a cute contemporary. I gave it a 4.5 on Goodreads. I thought the story was super cute. For those of you not familiar with the plot, this is the story of Maddy, a teenage girl with SCIDs. Basically, she’s allergic to the world (like the boy in the bubble) and is confined to her house. When a new family moves in, Maddy and her neighbor Olly strike up a friendship. As their friendship grows Maddy begins to long for more (Anyone humming The Little Mermaid now? Sorry about that…).  Without going into spoilers, the two do start up a relationship (it’s a YA contemporary, so of course they do) which results in many changes in both of their lives.

When hearing the plot, the story sounds kind of cliché. Nicola Yoon does a great job using what could be a similar story formula but keeping it unique enough to not feel like you’ve read this story before. Personally, I did see the ending coming, although it did not ruin the book for me.Like I said above, this movie was so freaking cute!

Like I said above, this movie was so freaking cute! It’s exactly what I thought I was going to get from an adaptation. I absolutely loved the animation in the beginning of the movie. It was the perfect way to introduce Maddy’s imagination and get some exposition out-of-the-way.

For the most part, this movie follows the book exactly. There were a couple changes, but overall this movie was a perfect visual recreation of the book. One thing that I really like that the movie did is that they made the scenes where Olly and Maddy were IMing into a face to face conversation. So many movies and television shows have had text message, IM, or email conversations show up as text on the screen. In the movie, the two have conversations in Maddy’s architecture projects. I loved that they did this because the audience can see the friendship between Olly and Maddy begin to form into romance, along with the emotion embedded in the messages. This was such a unique way for the characters to spend more time together on-screen.

They did add a couple of scenes where Maddy spends some time with Rosa. I did like that the movie actually used this character. In the book she’s mentioned a few times, but she never actually makes an appearance. In the movie, the took out the scene where Maddy visits Carla before she and Olly leave. I had mixed feelings about this. In the book, the scene adds an extra layer to the relationship Carla and Maddy have. Carla is both a friend to Maddy as well as a second maternal figure. That being said, the way the movie was composed, I think taking out the scene was the right choice. The flow of the movie was fantastic, it didn’t feel rushed, and I think keeping the scene would have messed with the flow.

Lastly, I thought the emotion the characters gave was phenomenal. For several scenes, mainly the “big reveal” the actors needed to find balance between what the characters were feeling and not coming off as phony or melodramatic. The same goes for the scenes with Olly and Maddy; they needed to come off authentic instead of “after school special.” Personally, I think the cast did this story justice, pulling off the right balance of humor and drama.

For fans of the book, I HIGHLY recommend this movie.

This adaption is an easy 5 out of 5 stars.  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Preference:

This one is close. There were many things I liked about both, but I think the movie has an edge up. Adding the changes to include more development between Ollie and Maddy was a great choice, resulting in me to have way more feels.