Every Day

What it's about:

Rhiannon, a 16-year old girl who falls in love with a mysterious soul named “A,” who inhabits a different body every day. Feeling an uncanny connection, Rhiannon and A work each day to find each other, not knowing what or who the next day will bring. The more the two fall in love, the more the realities of loving someone who is a different person every 24 hours takes its toll, leaving Rhiannon and A to face the hardest decision either has ever had to make.

What we thought:

A unique concept meets the angst of teenage romance, and while Every Day is a pleasant watch, it just missed out on really diving deep into its weird subject matter and leaves the audience with a very unfulfilling ending.

It’s based on the best seller of the same name by David Levithan, and for someone who hasn’t read the book the movie was quite passable, but from a little research some elements were left out that would have made the film more interesting, especially in terms of finding more people like the wandering spirit A, but instead we only focus on the budding yet difficult relationship between them and a girl unable to face her family life and hides within a one-sided relationship with a jerk.

A (multiple actors and actresses) wakes up every day in a new body, that’s always the same age as them, and is content with leaving little trace of their presence in the life of the person they take over. That is until they inhabit the body of Justin (Justice Smith), and spends a great day with the host’s girlfriend Rhiannon (Angourie Rice), and decides to pursue her to convince her that they exist.

Having one of your leads played by multiple characters really takes a certain finesse, but director Michael Sucsy was very apt at making the audience believe that multiple people were the same spirit, and his choice of actors for that difficult role was great. A has a very rounded character – that’s neither gender or race, has a great sense of humour and loves to have fun while being mature about the serious things in life. This is evident in every actor that portrays them, and without that thread, the whole movie would have fallen apart.

At first Rice came across as too sweet a person, but she grows on you as her character stumbles her way through a bizarre relationship – much like the Time Traveller’s Wife who has to deal with a love that unwillingly jumps through time – and she tries to push through the difficulties and strain her love for A puts on her other relationships with her family and friends.

However, there are some things left out of the screen adaptation from the book that would have given Every Day more gravitas and help explain the million and one questions you are left with by the end. In the book, A meets another spirit that does the same thing, but they decide to stay in their hosts for longer and has little respect for the lives of the person they control. There’s a definite lack of antagonism that makes the film feel flat, but at least it avoids the pitfalls of a shallow teenage romance film that would have made it hard to watch.

In the end, what was detrimental to Every Day was the last few seconds of the film – it felt forced and left you completely dissatisfied, even though it was probably for the best. Although it felt in character for A, Rhiannon’s final moments made no sense compared to how she was throughout the movie, and it felt like the book perhaps dealt with the ending better.

The relationship however felt very real in the rest of the film, despite the fantastical element, and takes the theme of change through to other parts of the story – like Rhiannon’s family that has changed after her father’s mental breakdown and Rhiannon herself is changed through her interactions with A. The romance of it all is both uplifting and tragic, but unfortunately the full potential of the movie was never reached.