All the Bright Places
ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES - NETFLIXBrett Haley settles with a safe, boring and aggravating teen romance-drama with his sixth feature film. Starring Justice Smith from Detective Pikachu fame alongside Elle Fanning, the film follows the progression of their relationship of traditional teenage angst.
All the Bright Places begins with a suicide attempt that is almost completely scene for scene similar to the Japanese anime show Beyond the Boundary: a cute, nerdy girl with glasses is saved by an eccentric high school boy right before she jumps. Except it’s done with far less execution. In the anime, the buildup to the initial contact between the two protagonists is patient and focused. Scenes have a purpose and further the progression of emotion until climaxing in their connection on the rooftop. References are important and can help focus a project, but in All the Bright Places, everything is done without focus.
As a teenage romance, All the Bright Places hits every cliche, doing nothing innovative while being grossly immature in handling themes of teenage suicide and mental illness. Justice Smith (Finch) plays an overbearing high school teenager who struggles with his past with his father, explained through forced exposition in either therapy or conversation with his sister. While the missing father figure cliche is boring and seen before, Finch is unlikeable. He manipulates Violet (Fanning) into calling him by posting on social media under the guise that he is checking if she is alive. He is forceful in getting her attention, pushing her to do things outside of her comfort zone because of his own lack of self-worth. The film glosses over this point without illustrating the danger of being an authoritarian high school boyfriend. Why she is accepting this borderline tyrannical display of intrusion is unexplainable. Nothing in this film feels natural, no place for belief.
The characters are annoying. Lazily throwing us into the middle of a story of two depressed teenagers isn’t cute, it's unbearable. The audience has no empathy towards these characters yet, it’s just explained that they are sad and that should be accepted. Maybe if this event happened with a flashback or some way to give context to the characters’ struggles, the audience could build some emotional attachment. Nothing is attempted besides lazy scenes of forced dialogue explaining backstory. None of the side characters are that interesting either, all being tropes of typical characters you would see in other teenage romance dramas – hard but empathetic fatherly figure as a counselor, slightly rough and empathetic sister.
The score is sappy and manipulative. Pulling on the heartstrings to get emotional resonation or generic pop upbeat songs for feelings of love or general happiness. Nothing really to applaud here, sadly. The biggest fault of the film is its romanticisation of mental illness. When tackling a theme with such emotional depth as mental illness, nothing should be sugar-coated. It is not cute or sexy to be mentally ill. It is not something that should tie characters together through romance. Not only is it just bad filmmaking but it is irresponsible as a filmmaker to take on such important themes without handling them with care. The film accidentally illustrates how romanticising mental health could be disastrous in the final arc.
Admittedly, the second half of the film is better, with the autocratic sense of angst mostly over with. Some tension is built successfully, and genuine growth is shown through both protagonists. Most of the highlights of the picture are in this second half. However, the ending is disgustingly nonchalant in handling a devastating event that is glossed over and given nowhere near enough attention to be handled sensitively.
All the Bright Places is a poor attempt at a teenage drama. Characters are poorly written, scenes are cheesy and the film is poorly executed following cliche after cliche of the genre. Brett Haley is shaping himself to be a very mediocre filmmaker with nothing new or innovative to offer. His themes have been used and recycled before, and they will be again.
ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES is streaming exclusively on NETFLIX