Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Rachel the Film (dir. G. Gaines and E. Jackson, 2011). This film, a loose homage to leukemia victim Rachel Kushner, is perhaps most noteworthy for its confusing mishmash of styles, incorporating documentary footage, confessionals, stop-motion animation, and puppetry in what can only be thought of as a huge mess. In fact, directors Gaines and Jackson begin the film with a grainy, pixilated apology to Rachel herself, admitting that the film is badly organized and basically incoherent. After that comes a pastiche of awkward well-wishes from high school students and teachers, sock puppets hitting each other, LEGO characters with incomprehensible accents, poorly scanned photos of Kushner’s childhood, and other absurdist one-offs with extremely limited relevance to the subject matter. The weepy, melodramatic conclusion, again featuring the directors, is frankly unwatchable. It is, however, a fitting end to what is almost certainly the worst film ever made.

The last time I talked to Rachel, she had seen Rachel the Film a few times, and I wasn’t sure how to talk to her about it. She was in bed, as usual, but not wearing her hat. She sounded the same as ever: kind of scraggly-voiced and congested in the nose. It occurred to me for the first time that that’s maybe what I sound like a little bit, too.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” she said.

For some reason I wanted to go in for a fist pound, but I didn’t.

“I saw Rachel the Film,” she said.

“Mmmm.”

“I liked it.”

“You know you really don’t have to say that.”

“No, I did like it.”

“Uh, if you’re sure.”

“I mean, it’s probably not my favorite.”

It was somehow a big relief that she was honest about it. I don’t know why this relieved me. I think I might have a disorder where your emotions frequently malfunction and a lot of the time you’re sitting there feeling something inappropriate. It should be called Emotional Moron Disorder.

“Yeah, if it was your favorite, that would mean you had kind of questionable taste, because it’s really not very good.”

“It’s good, it’s just not as good as some of the others.”

“No, seriously. I don’t know what happened. We worked insanely hard on it, and then, I don’t know. We just couldn’t do it.”

“You guys did fine.”

“No, we didn’t.”

I wanted to explain to her why things had gone so horribly wrong, but obviously I didn’t know why. I mean, Earl and I are not expert filmmakers, but at this point in our careers we should be creating something better than the sickening depressing chaos that is Rachel the Film.

“You’re funny,” she said. She had a bigger smile on her face than I had seen in a while.

“What?”

“You’re so hard on yourself. It’s funny.”

“I’m hard on myself because I’m a jackass.”

“No you’re not.”

“No, you have no idea.”

Maybe I couldn’t explain how we had made the Worst Film in the Entire World. But I could talk some trash on myself! I’m starting to realize that this is my favorite thing.

“No, you don’t have to live inside my head. For every, just, insanely stupid thing I do or say, there are like fifty even worse ones that I just barely avoid doing or saying, just out of dumb luck.”

“Greg.”

“I’m serious.”

“I’m happy we became friends again.”

“Oh yeah? I mean, yeah. I mean, me, too.”

And then we sat and didn’t say anything for a while. You’re probably hoping that I was sitting there overflowing with love and tenderness. Maybe you should think about switching to a different book. Even to, like, an owner’s manual to a refrigerator or something. That would be more heartwarming than this.

Because mostly I was feeling resentful and annoyed. I was resentful at Rachel for deciding to die. How stupid does that sound? There’s a decent chance that I’m not even a human being. Anyway, yeah, I was pissed that she was just going to go die. And I was maybe even more pissed that I had felt manipulated into pretending, in Rachel the Film, like I thought she wasn’t. I had looked into the camera and said, “I know you can get better,” and “I believe in you.” You could even see in my stupid eyes that I didn’t believe what I was saying. There was no way to edit that to make it look any other way. And obviously I’m a colossal jackass, but it was also Rachel who put me in that stupid position, by giving up on her entire life and leaving everyone else to pretend that it wasn’t happening.

Maybe Rachel sensed that I was thinking about the film, because she brought it up again.

“It was really nice of you to do that film.”

“Well, it sucked, but we had to do it. There’s no good reason why it’s not better.”

“You didn’t have to do it!”

Rachel was sort of wide-eyed.

“Yeah, we did.”

“No.”

“You’re literally our only fan. We had to make something for you.”

“Well, actually, there is something I want you do for me.”

This was so unexpected that I was able to make a joke.

“But we already made you a film! Is there no end to your demands, tyrant. TYRANT WOMAN.”

There was some weak snorting and giggling. Then it seemed like she had to compose herself before talking again.

“I went through that college book.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. And I found some film schools in there.”

It took me a surprisingly long time to get the point of what she was talking about.

“I also found some other colleges with good film programs,” she said.

I was nodding my head stupidly. I knew I couldn’t argue with any of this.

“I want you to take your films and apply to them. Earl, too.”

“Uh, OK.”

“That’s the only thing I want you to do.”

“Yeah.”

“Can you do that?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“You promise.”

“Yeah, I promise.”