Turtles All the Way Down review – Isabela Merced leads winning yet uneven YA film
For better and for worse, John Green’s young adult worlds tend toward the dramatic and expansive – big swings, big emotions, big mysteries and dreams. And always, the specter of death – of parents, friends (Looking for Alaska, a manic pixie dream girl mystery turned Hulu series) or the protagonists themselves (the cancer romance turned tearjerker hit The Fault in Our Stars). Turtles All the Way Down, the writer’s 2017 novel, turns the drama more inward: its protagonist, a highschooler named Aza Holmes, struggles with derailing thought spirals from obsessive compulsive disorder, partially inspired by the author’s own experience.
Such an alienating internal experience is the type of characterization that could be difficult to translate to screen, both for relatability and for the action – what to do with a romance when one half is too deathly afraid of bacteria to kiss? That the director Hannah Marks’s winsome film adaptation for Max invites us into Aza’s head from the jump, cued by jarring clicks and flashes of wriggly microscope slides, is a feat. Credit, too, to Isabela Merced, convincingly playing a midwestern teenage girl riven in two: the part who goes to Applebee’s and wants a boyfriend and dreams of attending Northwestern for lectures by her favorite psychology professor (Succession’s J Smith Cameron), and the part who constantly fears contracting a lethal infection of C diff bacteria.
The film, from a screenplay by Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker, likewise walks a fine line between standard adolescent caper and character study of mental illness, an unwieldy balance that, though occasionally generating sparks, never fully achieves equilibrium. The caper side has a ludicrous, half-hearted, though relatably undramatic plot in the sleepy suburbs of Indianapolis (filmed in Cincinnati, Ohio, a difference that will only be noticeable to people who know the Cincinnati skyline). Aza and her longtime best friend Daisy (Cree) discover that the white-collar criminal billionaire next door is missing, that there is a $100,000 reward for any information, and that his son is Aza’s childhood friend Davis (Felix Mallard), with whom she bonded at a summer camp for grieving children. (She lost her father, he lost his mom; someone’s parents had to die!)
That plot, involving Aza cozying up to a clearly smitten Davis while the exuberant, undaunted Daisy snoops, is quickly discarded, replaced by Aza’s increasingly intense thought spirals of microbial doom, narrated effectively in voiceover. Fractured by intrusive thoughts, Aza is, unsurprisingly, obsessed with theories of the self and prone to bouts of absurdist, dissociative thinking: if human bodies are mostly foreign microbes, who is in charge? What is real? She asks her psychiatrist
Dr Singh (Poorna Jagannathan), the esteemed professor and her well-meaning but overburdened mother (Judy Reyes), unable to settle on an answer, or accept a fate of medication. (The fear that anti-anxiety meds will change the real “you” is one of the film’s most poignant, delicately handled insights.)
These digressions veer from broadly indicative of the vast existential crisis that is adolescence, to vacuous and back; at nearly two hours, this is a film that could stand to tighten up the meandering conversations on the overwhelming prospect of life. Still, Turtles All the Way Down, which takes its odd name from an allegory told by Smith’s professor, manages to bridge the vast and the daily minutiae of high school life with relative aplomb. It’s believably soundtracked to a high schooler’s indie rock genre mix on Spotify (LCD Soundsystem, Tame Impala, Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy). Aza’s well-worn, increasingly strained friendship with Daisy, in particular, recalls recent YA successes like Max’s Unpregnant and Hulu’s Plan B. And Marks has a commendable handle for romantic tension without physical or even inperson interaction, building Aza and Davis’s relationship primarily though flirtatious texts, albeit relayed in toobig font on the screen.
The successes are in large part owed to Merced’s sensitive, grounded performance, her open face able to pass amusement, anxiety, self-loathing vitriol, panic attack and relief like quicksand. Her performance alone can absorb the film’s rougher edges, vaguer lines and dramatic whiffs, especially when assisted by a strikingly natural Cree. She capably handles the selfdestructive impulses and terror of Aza’s unraveling mental health through a downturn that is difficult to watch, without tipping into histrionics. Turtles All the Way Down, like other Green books before it, struggles to find a balance between relatable teenage angst and heightened vessel for emotions that feel bigger than life. In this adaptation, at least, things feel all too viscerally human.
Turtles All the Way Down is available on Max on 2 May in the US with a UK date to be announced
and rock climbing, striving to become the sort of “all-rounder” the industry demanded. Each call from a stunt coordinator came with inquiries about my abilities: could I handle fire-burns without a fire suit? Drive like a Nascar professional? Endure hours suspended upside down? With each question, the weight of responsibility pressed down on me, driving me to train harder, to push myself beyond my limits, to ensure that I could deliver an outstanding (and safe) performance. But beneath all my exterior physical confidence lay the fear of failure. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t shake some persistent questions: could I act? Could I execute this stunt, this time, unscathed? It was a question that loomed larger with each opportunity.
A conversation with a private acting coach in Montreal set me on the path to confronting the truth that had been staring me in the face all along: did I even want this? As I mulled over the prospect of starring alongside Hollywood heavyweights like Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston in my audition for Murder Mystery, I realised that my heart wasn’t in it. I had been living someone else’s dream, chasing a version of success that, in reality, rang hollow to me.
For so long, I was driven by the need for people to see me, to recognise that I had talent. I craved validation and acknowledgment from others, and I believed that achieving success in acting would fulfil that desire. However, as I reflected on my journey and experiences, I realised that this external validation wasn’t bringing me the happiness I had hoped for.
The real turning point came when a friend reached out to me in crisis. He was contemplating ending his life. As I helped my friend back from the edge, I glimpsed the stark reality of my own mortality. One misstep, one wrong turn, and I could find myself teetering on the same precipice of despair. It was a wake-up call, a reminder of the fragility of life and the imperative of following one’s true calling.
Although I have quit stunt performing, I miss it from time to time as I see my friends on TV or in movies. I continue to practise martial arts and enjoy competing as a top-performing athlete. I have found a new sense of balance. Instead of solely relying on adrenaline kicks from physical feats, I now channel my energy into writing roles that reflect the diversity and complexity of women like myself on screen or in video games. For instance, when writing for a video game, I advocate for characters to wear combat boots rather than high heels, emphasising practicality and authenticity. This shift allows me to express myself creatively while still contributing to the entertainment world. While I have embraced my passion for writing, I still carry with me the lessons learned from my time on the edge: the importance of authenticity, the unwavering resilience cultivated through adversity, and the necessity of pursuing one’s passions with unyielding determination.
Janine Parkinson is a writer and former stunt performer
only places they can be themselves. “It’s about celebrating and acknowledging that we still exist,” Sameshima says. “People who don’t identify with a gay community, people who don’t even identify as queer. In-between people.” • Dean Sameshima: Being Alone is at Soft Opening, London, until 8 June
and hunted food with only a wood cabin for protection, they are at one point forced to make unconscionable decisions about Falda and the baby’s future by a “Hex Doctor” (Coache herself) when the pregnancy goes wrong.
It’s all transformed into folk/fairytale-style dream logic, with little babies made of ice and wombs that glow like lanterns; it’s very theatrical but evocative. With no dialogue to work with, Etuk and Meadows do sterling work emoting and expressing the whole gamut of emotions, from hope, to agony and on through madness and resignation. Painful stuff, to be sure, but cathartic in its way.
• Cold is now available to stream on YouTube