Teener finally meets her soulmate
Exploring the universal themes of true love, identity and coming of age,
Every Day reflects contemporary ideas about acceptance and the freedom to be whoever you are — an idea very resonant in today’s young people who increasingly reject categorization.
The movie follows a teenage entity named only A, who wakes up every day in a different body. A falls head over heels in love with Rhiannon (Angourie Rice), a girl unlike anyone they’ve ever met. Can you have a relationship with a soul who inhabits a different body every day — sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl, sometimes the school quarterback, sometimes the outcast?
Screenwriter Jesse Andrews also filled out Rhiannon’s world, specifically giving her a family backstory that didn’t exist in the novel of the same title authored by David Levithan.
Rhiannon’s father is recovering from a nervous breakdown and not working, her mother is the sole breadwinner, her sister Jolene is a bit of a wild child and Rhiannon is the rock trying to hold everything together. “What was great about what Jesse did with Rhiannon’s story — introducing the family and their history — is that it gives Rhiannon a really clear character arc,” says movie producer Christian Grass.
When the producers approached Angourie, they discovered that she had already read the book and was a fan. “I loved the book and I love concepts like this. The story questions things we take for granted about how we think about ourselves and how we don’t always see people for who they really are, focusing too much on outside appearances. I thought it would make an awesome movie.”
The Rhiannon who audiences meet at the beginning of the film is living a fairly conventional life, albeit being the rock of her destabilized family. A nice girl, a good friend, a solid student, Rhiannon is dating the popular boy at school, though she doesn’t feel very connected to him or much appreciated. She’s playing all the parts she feels she should play at the expense of her own self-discovery.
Every Day is now showing in cinemas nationwide from Pioneer Films.