Let’s list the notable names involved with Turtles to the bottom (now streaming on Max), Must? It is based on a novel by John Green, best known for writing the YA mega-bestseller Weeper. The Fault in Our Stars. It stars Isabela Merced, best known for being the live-action Dora the Explorer, fresh off a role in (checks notes) (cough) lady weband will soon star in the highly anticipated Alien: Romulus. And it’s directed by Hannah Marks, who previously directed the comedy-drama. don’t make me go, which, like his current project, is an overwrought comedy-drama that works thanks to some endearing performances. But Turtles work better? Let’s find out.
TURTLES DOWN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: Right off the bat, we learn how Aza’s (Merced) mind works: in voiceover, she gives a spiel about how the human body is made up of 50% microbes. We’re all just “glorified bacterial colonies,” she says. No surprise: Cut to Aza in therapy, where we learn that she has obsessive-compulsive disorder, which manifests itself in severe germophobia. She has a Band-Aid on her finger covering a callus that she routinely opens, disinfects and wraps. She barely keeps her existential neurosis under control that she has come to the conclusion that she is not a creature of free will, considering that her body houses an invisible microbiome that she physically creates. has his. He doesn’t like taking his medications for fear that they will destroy his identity. On top of that, her father died a few years ago and he was the only person who really understood her; Her mother (Judy Reyes), bless her, does the best she can. Please, she sympathizes with mom here. In fact, I think they both deserve hugs and kind words of support.
Aside from all this, Aza is a pretty typical teenager. She’s inseparable from her well-accessorized best friend Daisy (Cree Cicchino), who is outgoing, bubbly, and more than a little quirky, the yin to Aza’s withdrawn yang. (Does Daisy’s job involve wearing a giant furry costume to entertain the kids? Of course it does!) Her favorite thing to do is eat a cheap lunch with a coupon at (a popular national restaurant chain known for its high salt and its overwhelming mediocrity). ), where Aza can drink a (popular brand soft drink) and eat a simple veggie burger. One day at the restaurant, they see a news story about a local billionaire who disappeared following a major financial scandal; Authorities are offering $100,000 for any information about him. Wait, Aza didn’t know the billionaire’s son? You know, Davis Pickett Jr. (Felix Mallard)? Indeed. They were friends in a support group for grieving youth. A light bulb goes off over Daisy’s head: What if they find Davis, probe him for information, and then get the $100k so they can pay for college and shit? But of course. IT IS THE PERFECT CRIME.
And then they try to do that and end up in the living room of the huge Davis mansion, staring at Dreamy Davis. I mean could you just look in its Eyebrows. You’ll get lost in them if you’re not careful and you’ll need a machete to escape. The problem is that Aza’s mental illness causes her to say things like, “Exchanging bodily fluids is my idea of hell,” which makes dating a little treacherous. But she tries. Meanwhile, there are about a dozen other plot threads going on here: Aza wants to go to Northwestern, where the philosophy professor she idolizes is a professor, but her mother isn’t sure she can be in the world. she his with her condition, creating tension. Davis senses Aza and Daisy’s plan to win the $100,000. Daisy gets hot and heavy with her schoolmate Mychal (Maliq Johnson). The eternal specter of Dead Parent Drama. Daisy is very close to writing Star Wars fanfic. And if two blatant, repetitive, and crass incidents of product placement weren’t enough, we see the logos of (sugary toaster pastry brand) and (highly addictive potato chips) prominently placed in the frame. Seriously, it’s a little hard to invest in Aza’s perse, precariously stacked romantic-comedy-dramatic situations when she feels like you’re walking down the aisles of the grocery store. We are just grateful that we like Isabela Merced so much.
What movies will it remind you of?: It’s funny, my vision of Turtles to the bottom fell between watching a documentary about the microbiome The secrets of your intestine and Jerry Seinfeld’s brand-biocom about (sugary toaster pastry brand), without freezing – as if fate itself dictated my agenda.
Performance worth seeing: Merced has such expressive eyes that they can be sad and hopeful at the same time. She’s a heartthrob who tends to elevate the films she’s in; Hopefully, better written projects are on the horizon in the future.
Memorable dialogue: The youth material tends to cover quite a wide tonal ground, exemplified by the following fragments of dialogue:
Daisy tempers Aza’s anxieties about sharing her condition with Davis: “You could literally start peeing out of your ears and he’d still be interested in you.”
Aza and Davis look at the stars and reflect on how it takes light 12 years to travel through space to see it: “In the light you see, we have the best and the worst in front of us,” says Davis. perfectly, because he always says The Perfect.
Sex and skin: Nothing beyond a frank discussion about dick pics.
Our opinion: Turtles to the bottom tends to… wait, what’s up with that title? Well, it’s taken from an almost profound allegory that the Northwestern professor shares with Aza, and it encompasses everything from the totality of existence to inpidual personality. It’s what Aza needs to hear and, frankly, the movie would work just fine without it. There are a lot of bells and whistles here that seem unnecessary, as if Green and screenwriters Elizabeth Bergrer and Isaac Aptaker were worried that a simple story about a teenage girl with OCD who tries to overcome her fear of germs so she can smash her lips with another pot Sensitive bacteria stew just wasn’t enough. Where they should lean on that central irony, they instead unnecessarily embellish it with enough plot to fill a miniseries, and it gets especially bananas in the third act, when Marks tries to juggle about 10 balls but only ends up with one and one. half of them in the air.
And I’m here to insist that yes, indeed, that central story is enough. And the filmmakers play that role extraordinarily well, which, along with a thoughtful performance by Merced that the script may not deserve, keeps Turtles afloat. Aza’s “thought spirals,” inspired by Green’s struggles with OCD, routinely push her into problematic bouts of illogic; Her high school life is frequently interrupted by visions of writhing single-celled organisms and disorienting hissing noises, and the effect is memorably dramatic. Aza subscribes to the stigma that she can’t truly be herself when she’s on medication, a significant character flourish that will ring true for many in the audience. (Just a thought: Can’t the opposite be true? That she can’t truly be herself without medication to correct a chemical imbalance?)
Without the deep empathy of this depiction of mental illness, the film would be an irritating collection of highly calculated idiosyncrasies in the hope of dredging up bits of comedy or drama. Daisy is a stereotypical best friend character played by Cicchino, whose performance feels more like a Nick/Disney sitcom than a serious feature film. The not-quite side plot with a $100,000 reward is about to hit the cutting room floor. The exaggerated pseudo-depths in dialogue and themes seem like literary concoctions rather than legitimate human behavior. There’s no room for any examination of grief and loss (a tired theme in modern cinema) among all the other trinkets. The score is aggressive and intrusive. The dynamic between Aza and her mother could use more emphasis, although Merced and Reyes find some dramatic traction where they can. Let’s be thankful that Merced removed a lot of the excessive stuff, except for the paid brands; As always, THE MARKS consume everything in their path and find the heart of the character and his inner dilemma, keeping us locked in when the Everything Else of the film tempts us to check it out.
Our call: Merced’s excellence elevates Turtles until reaching mediocre-plus. TRANSMIT IT for the lack of guilt in its star.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic living in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
