Netflix’s All the Bright Places is an emotionally heavy movie that explores grief, mental illness, and love.
I read All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven back in 2015 when we reviewed the novel on Book Hype. All I remembered was the ending and how impactful it was.
Therefore, I went into All the Bright Places knowing it was going to be emotional. Any piece of media about mental illness comes with a laundry list of trigger warnings, in addition to the added weight of whether or not they treat the subject matter “correctly.”
I can’t tell you whether or not All the Bright Places, both the book and the movie, did it right. Your mileage may vary.
I know some people will have issues with the film and the way grief and mental illness are portrayed. I know some won’t like the way certain characters — especially the parents and guidance counselors — treat this subject matter.
For me — and me alone — it almost doesn’t matter. I knew what I was getting into when I sat down to watch the movie. The journey was more important than the ending, and what I took away from this movie is that mental illness comes in all shapes and forms.
Elle Fanning plays Violet Markey, a young teen who lost her sister in a car crash. When we first meet her, she’s standing on the ledge of a bridge, looking down at the water below.
Violet’s world has been shattered. She is not the person she once was. She is sad, quiet, and scared. She doesn’t want to hang out with her friends, she doesn’t want to think about her sister, and she doesn’t want to get into any kind of car. She just wants to be alone in her sadness.
Justice Smith plays Theodore Finch. Everyone in school thinks he’s a freak because he’s weird and sometimes violent. We first meet him when he spots Violet on the bridge. He joins her before asking her to step down with him. She does and both of their lives change forever.
Finch’s mental illness takes a different form from Violet’s. He often appears happy and full of energy. It’s in the moments where he’s quiet and distant that you can tell something is wrong. He writes notes to remind himself to stay present. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.
Though Violet and Finch often appear to be polar opposites, they struggle with a lot of the same issues. They deal with their depression in different ways; neither of them is right or wrong.
Violet is what we usually think of when we picture depression. She’s outwardly sad and distant. She doesn’t enjoy what she used to. She just wants to be left alone. The misery encapsulates her.
Finch is not like that at all. He’s not afraid to ask Violet about her sister. He’s not afraid to push boundaries to get her to overcome her fears. But there’s also sadness wrapped inside his energy. He devotes himself to helping Violet but uses it as a distraction from his own issues.
“People don’t like messy.”
This is one of the first lines in the movie, and it comes up again later near the end. It’s such a pointed statement, and one that is completely true. I also can’t help but think that it applies to this film as well.
All the Bright Places is definitely messy. Sometimes Violet tries to use her sadness to get out of her schoolwork. Sometimes Finch pushes things too far. Sometimes Mr. Embry (Keegan-Michael Key), the guidance counselor, is too exasperated with Finch.
The point is that we’re all trying to do the best we can. Sometimes we get it right, and sometimes we get it wrong. There’s no singular correct way to handle mental illness — it is different for every person and every situation.
What I loved about All the Bright Places was that it showed two people who were still depressed despite their happiness. It’s a realistic take on mental illness, and one that doesn’t try to solve the problem. It just wants to show you the equation.
Mental illness is an exhausting, constant, daily struggle. Even when you’re happy, you can still be sad. I liked that this film didn’t shy away from that. I liked that it didn’t try to fix its characters. Sometimes it’s not about fixing a situation — it’s about making one day marginally better than the last.
Despite the tragedies we witnessed in All the Bright Places, I came away feeling stronger for it. It showed us how heavy anxiety and depression can be, but it also showed us that happiness and positivity are also possible, even if we must work harder than we ever have before in order to achieve them.
If nothing else, I think it’s important to remember that you never know who’s struggling. Be brave enough to be kind.