Ok people, bring your tissues and your anti-spoil glasses because what’s happening next might be a ….. I don’t know… weird experience?
So Netflix releases the adaptation of the beautiful and sad book All the Bight Places, staring the amazing, talented and beautiful Elle Fanning and the brilliant Justice Smith.
Theodore Finch (Justice Smith) and Violet Markey (Elle Fanning) are two teenagers who badly want to escape from their small town in Indiana. Violet is a popular girl who is secretly dealing with survivor’s remorse, and Finch is a boy obsessed with death, labeled a freak by other students. Fate brought the two together…
The movie is well constructed with an amazing soundtrack composed by Keegan Dewitt, which brings your emotions to the top. It’s like looking by the window an amazing sunrise while you are seated on the train, facing all the landscape and the colors of the world, bright memories comes to your mind and you just feel alive. Generally, this moment is interrupted by the guy seated next to you, dropping a huge fart or listening to a hardcore shit on his iPhone.
Anyway… It’s time to put your spoil glasses so watch it and come back later.
I have some issues dealing with death, hard time processing it sometimes and the movie really puts you there. Suffering from survivor guilt generally happened after an accident in which you were involved, it’s not always the case but it’s the principal reason. Violet has a hard time processing her sister’s death and Finch is here at the right time. He will start to help her and step by step, love will fulfill the two characters.
Like I said the movie is beautiful and I loved it. BUT…. There are some important elements that didn’t show in the screenplay.
While Violet is on a ledge of a bridge (in a tower in the book) Finch is also coming there to… kill himself. In the movie, Finch is running by the bridge and sees her on the ledge but it’s not really explained why he was here. During the movie, he justified the fact that he was passing by in an early run and if you are like me, maybe you thought, damn that boy loves to run for no reason.
Finch depression is not really explained in the movie. We know that he has issues, bipolar disorder, but the depression is not easy to catch.
In the Book Finch is so down that one day he tries to kill himself by taking sleeping pills, but he almost immediately regrets it. He goes to the ER and gets his stomach pumped. It’s only after that he joined a support group and runs into Amanda which also has her issues.
At the end of the movie, Violet goes directly to the lake. She magically guessed where Finch went. Find my Phone or Find my friend was probably turned on… but no, he sends an email to every single person he knows, saying goodbye and the clue “Blue Hole” helped her figure out where he went.
The book is written in a subjective style from the point of view of the two characters. The readers understand the changes in Violet’s life as she heals as well as the mental illness of Finch taking over progressively.
I think it’s this crucial element that is missing in the movie, the near-constant thoughts of suicide in Finch’s head. When Finch brings Violet home after they stay together a whole night, Violet’s parents forbidden her to see Finch again. It’s the trigger that will low him to the point of no return…