REVIEW: All The Bright Places Forgets The Bright In It’s Title

All The Bright Places, based on the novel of the same name by Jennifer Niven, follows two teens, battling their own emotional turmoil, whose lives cross paths on the ledge of a bridge in their small town in Indiana. The pair do not immediately hit it off after this meeting, until their class is tasked with a group project that requires them to wander around their home state. As Theodore “Finch” Finch (Justice Smith) and Violet Markey (Elle Fanning) begin their wandering, the two young teens begin to fall for one another, but things are never easy. With their own personal demons weighing down on them, it’s hard for them to even remember that sometimes the smaller moments can mean just as much as the big.

Directed by Brett Haley, this new young adult film from Netflix drags the viewer through a constant stream of sadness. It’s hard from an outsider’s perspective to understand another person’s struggles with mental health, but this film does not even try. The characters bounce back and forth between their highs and lows so quickly whilst long awkward pause filled with the two leads staring at one another seems like a waste of time when it could have been filled with dialogue and actions that could bridge the gap between the two.

What is also so baffling about this film is the use of the secondary characters. Not a single character, except Violet and Finch, seemed to know what was going on with the pair. Besides the stereotypical tropes the friends and parents fall in to, no one seemed to see that the two were struggling. For Violet, her parents shared the same personal tragedy as she did, but not once was there ever a scene, that didn’t go further than a few seconds of muffled communicated, in which they spoke about it or tried to discuss how they were dealing with their pain. For Finch, his best friends were so nonchalant when he would go missing for weeks at a time that it was almost disconcerting. With almost every teen attached to their phone, it is hard to believe that friends wouldn’t be sounding the alarm if one of their own just up and vanished.

It’s hard watching the effects of depression and mental illness play across the screen, but this is even harder. Today’s teenagers live in a different world than teens of the past. Depression, mental illness, anxiety, etc… is no longer hidden away like it once was. There is still a long way to go before mental illness is no longer looked down upon, but teens are finding ways to become more vocal about their own demons and finding ways to cope and/or overcome them. All The Bright Places does nothing to showcase that growth and awareness. The love story overshadows any true growth from the characters and the constant state of sadness makes it even harder for the viewer to stay engaged.

Grade: C