Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

As Earl rummages through the Gaines’s refrigerator, periodically tasting pâté or dried cuttlefish, he and Greg brainstorm ideas for Rachel’s film. They both agree that it’s difficult to make a film for someone because they will have to think about what Rachel would want and what choices they could make to determine a connection between the film and Rachel.

Greg and Earl decide to make a “get-well film,” gathering the comments and thoughts of well-wishers from school and Rachel’s synagogue (221). To make this film, Greg quickly realizes he will have to expose himself as a filmmaker to the entire student body, thus abandoning his remain-invisible approach to high school. He does so, despite his misgivings, setting up to film in Mr. McCarthy’s room after school. Even though several people participate, Greg and Earl are unable to gather very good footage. Everyone rambles on, or talks about their own experiences with tragedies, or worse, offer very mundane, surface comments about Rachel that show no one knows her very well. Plus, Madison gathered get-well cards for Rachel, so Greg feels the film will come across as redundant.

The young filmmakers turn to Ken Burns, a famous documentarian, for inspiration, thinking they’ll create a documentary about Rachel’s life. They plan to gather old footage and photographs and interview Rachel’s family, so they start by interviewing Denise, Rachel’s mother. The interview quickly turns sour when Denise states she believes that Rachel wants to die, so Greg and Earl attempt to interview Rachel’s grandparents over the phone, which does not go well at all. The only old footage they have of Rachel is a trip she took to Prince Edward Island with her mom and now-estranged dad. Greg and Earl realize that if they make a documentary, they will convey to Rachel her life is over because now it can be summarized (231). Rachel is weak and finds it difficult to speak, but she manages to tell Greg that he doesn’t have to make her laugh or put on a show. Greg and Earl decide to change tactics.

Although they’ve had success with sock puppets in the past and know Rachel likes sock puppets, Greg and Earl struggle to come up with a plot. They create a fight scene between Rachel and a character named Luke Emia, but Greg dismantles the idea because it feels untruthful. It seems to Greg that Rachel isn’t fighting her cancer at all.

Greg explains that stop-motion animation requires you to “shoot a single frame of something, move the characters slightly and maybe also the camera, shoot another frame” and so on until you create an entire film (238). It is a very long process, but Greg and Earl develop a story idea around the use of Greg’s LEGO Darth Vader, who heads up an organization of evil villains who love leukemia. Darth Vader recruits a glass-encased tarantula paperweight who also loves leukemia. Just before Thanksgiving, Rachel and Denise decide to stop treatment, and Greg and Earl haven’t made it very far into their stop-motion animation film for Rachel.