I liked the movie until... **SPOILERS**

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I couldn't get past the deadpan delivery of Thomas Mann as Greg.

Had this film been done five years ago, Michael Cera would have played Greg, and would have done it better.

To your point on the death scene, I thought it was nice for the hospital staff to leave the lights out in the room so she could finish watching the film before they tried to save her.

The film tries so hard to be clever and ends up being and over-the-top pompous look at how teens deal with life, school, and tragic issues.

Fin

He lies about her dying so you can experience her life and their story without the baggage of a death at the end. Would you have invested In them as much otherwise? At first I was pissed, but just because I lied to myself in believing what he said. If you have ever watched a loved one die, you sometimes have to lie to yourself, tell yourself that they will heal and be better, just to not go crazy with the truth. He was lying to us, but in some ways to himself as well.

I sort of see what you mean, but it didn't bother me at all; but maybe that's because that scene (for me) was one if my favorite scenes I've seen in a long time. A non verbal scene, but one that said so much. Greg's apology to Rachel, Rachel bring so happy at her true friend and truly feeling happy (probably for the first time in a while) before her death, and also I think was showing the power of film and the emotional impact it can have on an individual. I thought the film absolutely earned that moment.

But I get that you felt manipulated because Greg said she wouldn't die. I think it was because, when a loved one is dying, I think we all tell ourselves it will be fine and that they'll pull through; all the way up until the end.

Whether you liked the movie or not, Greg being an an unreliable narrator shouldn't be the reason a movie or book is good or not. Plenty of great movies and books have unreliable narrators, The Tell-Tale Heart and Apocalypse Now being two examples that jump to mind. The difference between those characters and Greg is Greg isn't crazy, he's willfully lying to us.



I believe whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you...Stranger

I never regarded him as a completely reliable narrator. Name me a teenager who is.

And he told us in the beginning that a character died, so when he first told us that Rachel lived, I immediately wondered whether it was a lie. After all, we do not use the word "dying" in reference to people who later recovered; we say that they had been "deathly ill." So Greg as the narrator / author of the film is lying to us one way or another, either with a) a title that indicates that Rachel dies plus the initial assertion that the film-within-the-film will cause a character to die, or b) by this new reassurance that she doesn't die. And you can immediately see a rationale for the latter lie; to give the audience the same hope he had at that point in the story.

The second time he reassured us, I felt that it was very likely that she did die.

Re your second point, we saw the beginning of the film he made for her, and it's actually terrific. Rachel would have clearly been moved by the silent shots of her friends' faces and reactions. Then it moves into clearly symbolic animation. Not only wasn't I perplexed that she was moved, I was moved myself.

Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.

It's the most realistic depiction I've seen about grief like this. Someone very, very close to me has cancer and although I know it's not curable and that any day or tomorrow even could be the end - I tell myself everything's going to be alright and okay because I need to tell myself that. Earl is unreliable, but so are we when dealing with this.

dcTalker writes: "We had been told repeatedly that she was going to live."

What!

"Dying Girl" is right in the title!

And did you miss the "Day xx of Doomed Friendship" captions that appeared like 500 times.

And Earl says that Greg is the last chance for Rachel to be with a guy.

Also Greg said the story wasn't romantic, and then he brings her the corsage. He denied it, but he was in love with Rachel.

"She was visibly moved, but why? There's a disconnect."

What we see of the film, we can judge that it was "abstract". It wasn't a documentary-style film that Greg struggled with. The film was "expressionism". It showed how he felt about Rachel. It was a window into his soul, and Rachel knew that.

Rachel dies before the end of Greg's film, because there is no end -- Remember Mr. McCarthy's speech about finding more about the dead person -- the relationship doesn't end with death. The caption for the last scene is "The Part After All the Other Parts". I think the idea is that through his art, Greg's relationship with Rachel will continue to develop.



 "Maybe it's another dimension. Or, you know, just really deep." --Needy