Mark Reviews Movies: THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE

The Sky Is Everywhere, Apple Original Films and A24

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 10, 2022

Like grief itself, The Sky Is Everywhere is messy. That seems to be part of the point of director Josephine Decker's adaptation of Jandy Nelson's novel, as a teenage girl tries to cope with the death of her older sister. Too much of this material, though, feels too calculated and quirky for the emotional reality and honesty it's attempting to convey.

Here, we meet Lennie (Grace Kaufman), an avid and talented clarinet player who's preparing to apply to Juilliard. She did have passion for music, that is, until her sister Bailey (Havana Rose Liu) suddenly died from a heart condition while rehearsing for the school play. Since then, Lennie hasn't been able to play her instrument, and she really doesn't care what that means for her future.

All of this begins in an admirably blunt way—from its narration, to its depiction of depression, to the paradox of life going on as normal, even when Lennie feels as if her own world has come to an end. The screenplay, written by the author, simply observes Lennie and gets inside her mindset, and there's real truth in the early sections here.

There's a lot to appreciate about this relaxed narrative, its attention to these characters, and the ways it allows the blending of reality, memory, and fantasy (A vision of sorts has our protagonist seeing the earth shifting in front of her, and Decker portrays that and some other similar moments with simple, handcrafted effects). Even when the movie veers into the quirkier side of things in these earlier stages, it maintains a certain level of emotional grounding.

Lennie lives in sizable cabin in the woods with her grandmother, known affectionately as Gram (Cherry Jones), and her uncle, known only as Big (Jason Segel). Both of them have known grief before this, of course, most notably with the death of the sisters' mother, from the same condition that killed Bailey. The understated gentleness and quiet wisdom of those two adult characters come through far more strongly than their obvious eccentricities (Gram is an abstractionist painter and a gardener of roses that have become locally legendary, and Big comes up with odd experiments, such as trying to resurrect insects, while—and probably because of—smoking a lot of marijuana).

The other grieving party here is Toby (Pico Alexander), who was dating Bailey and whom Lennie never really liked. He keeps coming around the house to help with yard work, and Gram suggests that Lennie should be kind and friendly toward the poor young man. He's suffering, just like the family.

Meanwhile at school, Lennie finds herself drawn to Joe (Jacques Colimon), a charming and talented musician, and finished with participating in the school band. She would rather spend her time remembering her sister, writing notes to no one in particular, and staying near all of Bailey's possessions, imagining that the clutter in their once-shared bedroom means that the sister will be returning at any moment.

Things take a considerable and more contrived turn toward a formulaic plot, as Lennie tries to make something of her crush on Joe, while also developing some confused feelings toward Toby in their shared sense of mourning. To be fair, Nelson does attempt to frame this eventual love triangle within the emotional uncertainty of grief (Lennie's best friend Sarah, played by Ji-young Yoo, almost seems to exist to offer a rationalization of her connection to her dead sister's boyfriend—and to add yet another complication when the friend disapproves of the bond at first). That, though, doesn't change how much the newly adjusted plot overshadows the movie's core ideas.

Regardless, some of these new developments do work. That's especially true of the way Decker visualizes Lennie and Joe's connection through music (A scene with shared headphones, Bach, and dancers in rose-covered costumes is particularly lovely, although another scene of the two floating in the air during a duet pales in comparison), as well as the unspoken choice between living in the past and moving forward that the two love interests represent. Some of the later scenes with the family, as Lennie lashes out in pent-up anger and Gram forces her granddaughter to recognize how selfish grief can become, return the material to its roots, and throughout, the performances, with Kaufman serving as a bare outlet for these conflicting thoughts and feelings, are authentic enough.

There's a constant battle between the authentic and the artificial throughout Decker's movie. On the one side, we have Lennie, all of the internal turmoil that the movie approaches and presents, and the growing conflict of the notion of moving on as a kind of betrayal.

On the other side, we have those flights of fancy, which feel sincere at first but gradually become more a deflection from reality than a reflection of it. More to the point, though, there's the two-way romance plot, which inevitably erupts into misunderstanding and conflict (All of it, of course, could be cleared up pretty easily with a few words, and when that does eventually happen, the contrivance of the conflict becomes transparent).

Ultimately, The Sky Is Everywhere is of two minds and modes—of digging into the truth of grief and of resting upon an easier, more comfortable type of conflict. The first works and, at times, quite well. The second only gets in the way.

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