Turtles All the Way Down
When I was in middle school, me and my friends would read John Green novels as if they were young adult diaries. We’d devour them, living vicariously through Margo Roth Spiegelman and Alaska Young’s self-constructed mysteries or pining after the love story of Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters so naturally, when an adaptation was announced, we went straight to the theater.
“Turtles All The Way Down” is a screen-on-paper translation of one of Green’s stories directed by Hannah Marks and written by Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker who both wrote “Love, Simon.” Both the release of the book and film came years after I should’ve become an adult, so I wondered if his narrative charm would still affect me. But “Turtles All The Way Down” is anything but stale, it will find its teenage audience and amaze anyone who thinks they’re too old for it.
Aza (Isabela Merced) is a shy teenager with obsessive-compulsive disorder who often gets stuck in thought spirals about infection and the human microbiome, feeling like an unending Russian doll of a person she can’t locate herself in the layers. Balancing her mental health while mourning her late father and feeling misunderstood by her hovering though well-meaning mom (Judy Reyes), Aza frequently drowns in her own humanity. Her best friend Daisy (Cree) is her complete opposite extroverted, funny, and always unbothered, sometimes to the point of recklessness.
When a billionaire goes missing to avoid pending charges, Daisy talks Aza into sneaking onto his estate to look for clues, hoping to cash in on the $100k reward for useful information. When they’re caught by security, Aza’s saving grace from a call to the cops is that she knows the magnate’s son Davis (Felix Mallard) from a childhood summer spent at grief camp this prompts a quick shift from puppy love to full blown crush. But as much as Aza wants closeness, the normal butterflies of anxiety are metastasized by the crushing weight of her OCD.
“Turtles All The Way Down” understands youth right now which comes with conversations about mental health. Marks’ direction and excellent sound design, setting Aza’s thought spirals against a backdrop of pulsing static, puts us right inside her headspace. Neither this film nor Merced’s very emotive performance pities Aza or people like her as if they’re something other than us. The closeness we get to Aza through Merced’s narration of her inner dialogue and Merced and Cree’s palpable, smile-inducing chemistry as Daisy root her so deeply that it becomes easy to find our own anxieties among those shallow breaths. But it doesn’t stop at her. It’s also deeply, deeply relatable.
Their days are filled with sarcastic love life commentary, coupon dining at Applebee’s and driving around while the CD Stankonia by Outkast is perpetually stuck in Aza’s car stereo (a sweet moment of them rapping along to “Ms Jackson” is just one highlight in the movie’s killer soundtrack, which also includes needle drops from LCD Soundsystem, Tame Impala and Billie Eilish).
The Davis-Aza relationship serves up a lot of heartwarming, foot-kicking sweetness, but Mallard struggles to match Merced’s authenticity. While some of their one on one scenes and adorably awkward text convos will remind you of your first big crush, or maybe what you thought it would have been like (unless your high school sweetheart whisked you off on a private jet to Chicago good for you), nothing beats the Aza-Daisy dynamic. Through all their ups and downs, best friendship wins out over love, lust and bacteria.
“Turtles All The Way Down” sparkles with John Green whimsy (this is his favorite adaptation so far). It’s an enchanting YA romance that doesn’t restrict itself to being solely enjoyable for its target audience. “Turtles All The Way Down” will make young people feel seen and make everyone else wish they still were.
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