Review: 'Me and Earl and the Dying Girl' pays last tribute to Schenley High School

The Sundance Film Festival favorite, “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl”, is a hip book-turned movie about a socially awkward high school senior who befriends a dying girl.  Starring Thomas Mann, Olivia Cooke, and RJ Cyler, the gang, through quirky homemade films and multi-dimensional wit, reroute their high school experience when a classmate declares her terminal illness.
The cast, Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, and writer Jesse Andrews sat down with Movie Scene Queen to discuss the movie, specifically the joys of getting to know Pittsburgh.
“I could die here,” said Cooke, 21 , about the Steel City.  Her other two cast members quickly agreed.
The chemistry between the three amigos is naturally obvious on and off screen.  The cast thoroughly enjoys each other’s company.
It is Earl who sticks out like a sore thumb, though.  The cast is phenomenal, but it is RJ Cyler, who peeks my interest.  Like most post-pubescent boys, his carefree spirit plays both the calm and the chaos in the film.
RJ Cyler is just as comically attractive as his character, Earl. The cast and crew recently wrapped up a press tour in Pittsburgh.  The energy between the cast was surprisingly ignited by Cyler.
Between a funny photo-shoot and random outbursts, Cyler has the likeable characteristics of a kid brother.

Jesse Andrews, a 2000 graduate of Pittsburgh Schenley, returned home last summer to transform his fiction novel in to a movie.  James Hill, a Schenley historian and 2011 graduate says Andrews success “has truly lived up to the school’s motto—he entered to learn and he has gone forth to serve.”
The majority of “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” was taped at Schenley High School.  The movie pays one last “dying” tribute to the school, which was closed it actual doors in 2008.
The first high school in the country with a $1 million construction budget.  The Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation certified the Oakland high school as a historic landmark in 1992.  Schenley High School still holds the state for the most state basketball championships (5).
“Schenley High School in its heyday was one of Pittsburgh Public Schools brightest time of expansion,” said Hill.  “This movie truly acts as Schenley’s final bow, closing the door on the school’s 99 years.  It’s now forever immortalized in film.”

As I embark on my 10-year class reunion, the triangular structure served as more than my secondary learning.  It shaped me into the woman I am today.  Even a decade later, this film conveniently reminds me of the overcrowded parties in the trophy room, the musty cafeteria where we could lock out staff from both ends, or the Tripper, which consisted of a PAT bus waiting to carry us home upon dismissal.
From creating life-long friendships to later on chaperoning school events, Schenley High School will always have a special place in my heart and shall live forever in the lives of those who graced its hallways.
I commend Jesse Andrews for doing what so many of us want to do.  Whether it be fictitious or reality, we, as Schenley alum, just want to let the world know how great of a school Schenley High School is, not was!
4 Stars