I was wallowing about my house on Alviso St, wracked by a wicked hangover the likes of which I had not seen for some time. It was a Thursday, and the air in my house hung still and warm with boredom. I needed a plan to hatch. My mind suddenly ushered an idea to its forefront, a movie title my sister had mentioned. She said it was a must-see. Best movie of the year---it had made her cry. Some indie movie with a sentence for a title, as only indie movies are pretentious enough to have. "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl."

A little flutter of joy lifted the hangover momentarily. It had been too long since I had been to the movies, and even longer since it was an indie movie that I knew many in the get-it-for-free-on-the-internet demographic, of which I am begrudgingly a part of, would most likely overlook. The magic of the movie theater will never wear off for me. I don’t buy popcorn or the miniature bathtubs that pass as a medium soda anymore, but I try to go, and usually by myself. I’ve gotten possessive of the movie-going experience. My usual method involves a solo trip on the VTA number 60 bus to AMC Mercado, where I sit as still and lonesome as possible for a two-hour escape from the world. But on this muggy and hungover Thursday I decided to bring a friend along. Cause that can be fun at the movies too.

"Me and Earl" cleaned up at Sundance, winning both the Grand Jury and Audience Prizes. This was about all I knew walking into the dark theater, because I’d caught a glimpse of the poster in the hallway. Needless to say, my anticipation for quirk suddenly bubbled. I was not disappointed. Greg (played by indie-high school-dramedy veteran Thomas Mann) and his childhood friend Earl (newcomer and scene-stealer RJ Cyler) are filmmakers for their own weird enjoyment. As kids, they got into remaking famous films by satirizing the title (for example, "A Sockwork Orange" starring several sock-puppets.) Greg is content to hole up in his film-geek room, complete with Nosferatu poster, and go about his high-school life where he has achieved “citizenship in every nation” (every adolescent clique that is) by being on “low-key good terms with everyone.” I clicked pretty much immediately with Greg. His sense of humor is zanier than mine, and his knowledge of cinema infinitely more extensive. But that desire to be mildly and widely appreciated to the point of invisibility hit home.

Greg’s life is complicated by the third part of the film’s title. British actress Olivia Cooke plays the titular dying girl, Rachel. Rachel has leukemia. Cooke plays her character with a brilliantly dull overshadowing to cover a truly wounded soul. Her almost impossibly big eyes fill up the screen with a cool and understated wisdom of everyone’s hipster dream-girl, but she makes sure to inject fear into her character. Fear so real and sharp it can only be that of a young girl facing the end of her life.

Cue plot. Greg is pressed by his mother (Connie Britton, everyone’s on-screen mom for all the right reasons) to go spend time with lonely Rachel to brighten our spirits. Here, the audience is treated to some cringe-y first encounters that seem to spell out all the signs of the classic quirky meet-awkward. But Greg (also the narrator) is quick to tell us, on the second day they spend together, that this is not a romance. So I sat in my movie-theater chair and skeptically rolled my eyes. Sure it’s not. We’ll see when you guys start making out in the rain or something.

The story is then propelled primarily by the budding friendship of Greg and Rachel, and the logical thing that he can do for her. The only gift the healthy and fearful boy can give the sick and bravely shut-in girl. A film. Greg enlists Earl and proceeds to pour every amount of effort and time into the project. It seems doomed, not for lack of prowess or dedication from Greg, but by his manic determination to make it perfect. This is where I fell in love with this movie, where it became more than just a unique and pleasing indie coming-of-ager. It got murky with the feelings. The audience is shown very little of Greg and Earl’s film until the movie’s incredible final act, but we are able to see into both method and madness. It was hard, at times, to watch a relationship develop that for all the movie tropes in the world should have been romantic, but wasn’t. I respect the story for that. It dares to be different. Instead, we are left with a strange and truly emotional friendship. At its heart, "Me and Earl" is just that. A story of the lengths we will go to for our friends.

I related to Greg most in his struggle. His internal conflict is that of a man trying to remain invisible while betraying himself and deciding to become entirely too visible to one person in particular. He’d done his job of keeping himself hidden in filmmaking. But here was his chance to construct something meaningful, and he continues to try to find ways to hide within it. But like someone trying to hide inside of a sweater they’re stitching, it’s not going to work. In its final act, "Me and Earl" slapped me with another all-to-real revelation: when we try to channel a friendship into one specific effort as a way to either prove it or quantify it, we are doomed to fail, and yet destined to succeed. Effort is all that it takes. And when we are Rachel, and someone is going to a great deal of trouble for us, we let them toil away because we know it means more to them than it probably ever will to us. The look on her face is gonna be priceless.

"Me and Earl"captures friendship in all its beauty and humor and tragedy. And it was about time that a movie eschew the trappings of romance and move friendship from a sideshow to the forefront, and explore how important and infuriating it can be. At the end, I felt as if a layer had been peeled off of me. I felt simpler, more solid and more understanding. Just by the fact that I’d enjoyed the movie, "Me and Earl"gave me a gift. I didn’t go to the movie alone. I brought a friend along.