Teenage longing The main characters are young people and they are often outsiders, have lost once the meaning of life and are now trying to find hope in all this life confusion; it goes without saying that any modern teenager wants to associate himself with such personalities. "All joyful places", well, almost does not depart from this formula, but, admittedly, implements this formula tastefully and even in something creative. The film surrounds the central characters with pressing issues of grief, depression, suicide, and also tries to engage the audience in the details of a pleasant novel. This is a good study, especially for a teenage project, but the very creative implementation fades a little: in an effort to bring the above formula to perfection, “All the Joyful Places” in some way this concept devalues.
The first act contains a rather intriguing idea. The film begins with the modest Violet trying to throw herself off a bridge. Her suicide attempt is interrupted by Theodore Finch. Both teenagers stand each other: sister Violet died in a car accident and since then the girl was in a kind of emotional coma, and Finch was nicknamed a freak at school because of his strange behavior. The young man immediately becomes interested in Violet, shows her signs of attention and soon they are working together on a school project: they travel to different unusual places in their state.
The further development of events is familiar to anyone who has even a superficial knowledge of the world of rum-coms. Finch is such a dream guy, a prince on a white horse and the person from whom women would shy away in real life, but in the world of cinema he is the embodiment of the Hollywood idea of courtship. However, soon viewers will learn the truth about Finch: behind his romantic gestures hides a very insecure person suffering from a mental disorder. It turns out to be a really interesting idea that fills a hitherto aimless film with meaning.
As the plot develops, there is less confidence in the main cinematic lesson. Teenage dramas always follow certain plot paths, and the further we get into the territory of the relationship between Violet and Finch, the more obvious ... the whole non-standard scenario of “Joy Places”. It would be unfair to review the main spoiler, but it is both predictable and unexpected. At the same time, alas, he eventually seems somehow forced: the final scenes cause just as much emotion as all the others, which may devalue the climax.
While El Fanning and Justice Smith are certainly some of the most talented actors in their age group, their beauty and Hollywood gloss don’t help. They are too cute and therefore unreal. The same Fanning constantly wears a whole collection of magnificent fashion outfits that do not fit either the character of her heroine or her mental state.
The two talented actors bring the film the emotional depth it needs, but it is unlikely that All Joyful Places can say anything new or provocative about the challenges of the complex and fragile teenage world. Rather, it is such a screen adaptation of the “problems of white people” that against the background of some satirical “End of the f***ing world” looks toothless: although “Joyful places” is cheerful and repulsive, it is impossible not to recognize its unnaturalness. Multifaceted characters quickly (albeit gracefully) dissolve into a touching “Hollywood syrup”, so the conclusion is simple: instead of encouraging empathy, the script, alas, revels in grief and suffering.
5 out of 10
