Movie Review – ‘Every Day’

“I am a drifter, and as lonely as that can be, it is also remarkably freeing. I will never define myself in terms of anyone else. I will never feel the pressure of peers or the burden of parental expectation. I can view everyone as pieces of a whole, and focus on the whole, not the pieces. I have learned to observe, far better than most people observe. I am not blinded by the past or motivated by the future. I focus on the present because that is where I am destined to live.”  David Levithan, Every Day

It’s a tragic love story of an individual doomed to live in a person’s body every 24 hours, though the audience doesn’t understand why, they see a struggle in the person as they fall in love with a girl only to have to convince her that they are still them only in a new body.

Based on the best selling novel by David Levithan, Every day stars long cast of teenagers including Angourie Rice as Rhiannon, the girl that A falls in love with as well as Justice Smith, who plays Rhiannon’s boyfriend, whom A first possesses and creates the perfect first date for them as well as other actors that each had a day to make a connection.  All in all, it was 15 days and 15 bodies inhabited and A for the first time wishes to stay in them to be able to fully love Rhiannon, but the question is can they really live in another body and be their full self?  

An hour 35 minutes, Every Day is a typical teenage love story similar to others including The Vow and more recently Paper Towns, where we see how deeply teenagers and first loves can be, but ultimately it stands out, because the outcome is not at all what you would expect. There is a little bit of mystery element similar to Paper Towns, where Rhiannan and A attempt to find each other though Rhiannan doesn’t know who or what to look for, but little clues along the way help them to rekindle the romance that just keeps growing in new and unimaginable ways.  Similarly, the relationships that each person has with Rhianna though it is only one day, it is shown with an amazing display of emotion which can only be delivered by exceptional acting.  The scenes from the beach with Justin, to the hallways of the school showed the development of the relationship and although it was a different body, the actors did an exceptional job of keeping the continuity of the relationship between A and Rhianna. Ultimately, through the journey, it leads to a stunning revolution that the audience has to see to believe. 

Filmed in both Bayside and Queens, New York, it didn’t really take away from the film, though in the end, when A talks about traveling to other cities including New York, until that moment, one wouldn’t really take notice to location.  It could have essentially been filmed any where and still have the same affect.  The story itself moved rather fast, adding to the point of 24 hours per body, as when one looks back on the journey, A inhabited 15 bodies before a decision could be made about love.  In a way it shows the love cycle of teenagers and how fast one falls in and out of love in high school, so it can be believable in the pacing of the movie.  All in all, it was 15 days and 15 bodies inhabited and A for the first time wishes to stay in them to be able to fully love Rhiannon, but the question is can they really live in another body and be their full self?

Verdict: 4 out of 5