‘Bright Places’ embraces darker impulses
Spoiler alert! We’re discussing plot points in “All the Bright Places.” If you don’t want to know what happens, please come back after you’ve read the Jennifer Niven book or watched the Netflix movie.
When it comes to YA (young adult) movies, many of the teenage protagonists never make it to adulthood.
“The Fault in Our Stars,” “Maze Runner,” “Divergent,” “The Hunger Games,” “The Hate U Give” and “Five Feet Apart” are just a sampling of YA adaptations from the last decade in which a major character doesn’t survive the movie. And if you have to pick one YA title that involves death, chances are the controversial series “13 Reasons Why,” about a teen who takes her own life and details why, comes to mind. The show received so much backlash about its portrayal of suicide that Netflix deleted a death scene and added a disclaimer that “13 Reasons” “might not be right” for certain viewers.
But Netflix isn’t shying away from bringing another weighty YA book for the screen: “All the Bright Places” is streaming Friday.
Reminder: Spoilers are ahead. This is your last chance to bail if you don’t want to know.
“All the Bright Places” is adapted from Niven’s popular 2015 YA novel, cowritten for the screen by Liz Hannah and directed by Brett Haley. It dreamily telegraphs the romance of Violet (Elle Fanning, who also produces) and Finch (Justice Smith), classmates who are battling distinctly different inner turmoils. He’s dealing with an unidentified mental illness, and she’s struggling to move on after the death of her sister.
And, as you now well know, one of them doesn’t make it through the film.
But did “Bright Places” have to include a (rather ambiguous) lead character death?
The short answer, say filmmakers, is yes – both to stay true to the book and to tell the most effective story.
Finch’s demise is open-ended, even more so in the movie than the book, but
“I didn’t want it to end this way, but ... that was the only ending I could have.” Jennifer Niven, author
here’s what we know: He goes missing with his clothes strewn on rocks near a lake. The implication is that he has drowned, either purposely (perhaps with rocks, as did Virginia Woolf, the writer whose presence looms large in the book), or unintentionally (he’s held his breath for a scary-long time previously, and maybe this time stayed under too long).
“I didn’t want it to end this way, but I always knew, writing it, that was the only ending I could have,” says Niven, who has been candid about the fact that the book version of Finch was inspired by a man she knew and lost in her 20s. “That’s the story that I felt I could write, and write honestly with all the emotion that I experienced at the time years ago when it actually happened.”
Director Haley says that after meeting with “many, many mental health professionals about the script,” certain aspects of the book were tweaked for the screen – including that Finch no longer explicitly says that he’s suicidal – in an effort to responsibly tell a story about someone who shows signs of inner conflict before he disappears.
“We wanted it to be more engaging with the audience, like ‘What’s going on with him? Why is he suffering?’ These are interesting conversations to have,” says Haley, making it clear that in the film Finch wasn’t diagnosed with a specific mental condition. “We did not want to make a blanket statement and say, ‘Oh, well, this is how the disorder is.’ ”
Haley says his movie isn’t “glorifying or showing anything on screen,” but instead opens a dialogue about mental health among viewers by presenting what could happen when someone is suffering and doesn’t speak out. “Bright Places” ends with information about how to seek help, and Netflix will share a roundtable discussion to social media on Saturday that features the film’s cast, mental health influencers and Niven.
The author knows that engaging with readers and viewers is helpful. Niven has interacted with numerous fans on social media and in person with wet hugs, who’ve told her that “Bright Places” has “saved their lives” by encouraging them to seek therapy and talk to their loved ones about hidden problems.
“One of the many things I love about YA is the fact that authors are not afraid to go there. They’re not afraid to talk about issues that teens need people to talk about,” says the writer whose next book, “Breathless,” out in October, will cover topics including intimacy and parental divorce.
But she doesn’t advise that these heavy topics be worked into YA novels casually.
“Some books do that beautifully and some books, you know, use (death) more as a plot device and romanticize it,” she says, without naming books. “Those, I have a problem with, but at the end of the day, you have to be sensitive and responsible and also do your due diligence.”