Netflix movie 'All The Bright Places' struggles to address mental health and grief within a conventional teen romance

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  • Netflix's new coming-of-age film "All the Bright Places" follows Theodore Finch (Justice Smith) and Violet Markey (Elle Fanning), two Indiana high schoolers who fall for each other in the midst of dealing with their own personal traumas.
  • "All The Bright Places" is a step forward in representing teens' mental health issues from the controversial Netflix show "13 Reasons Why."
  • Fanning and Smith have convincing, endearing chemistry together.
  • Still, the movie never manages to find a balance between telling a cutesy teen romance and exploring darker topics surrounding mental illness and suicide.
  • Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

If you've kept up with the controversy surrounding Netflix's "13 Reasons Why," the streaming giant's new movie "All The Bright Places" feels like a pointed response.

"13 Reasons Why" was an adaptation of the book by the same name, and followed the repercussions of 13 tapes a high schooler sent to people in her life after she died by suicide. The 2017 show became one of the streaming giant's most-watched originals, but soon faced intense backlash for how it dealt with the sensitive topics of teen mental illness and suicide.

Netflix's decision to adapt Jennifer Niven's 2015 book "All The Bright Places" — which follows teenagers Theodore Finch (Justice Smith) and Violet Markey (Elle Fanning) as they deal with similar mental health struggles — appears to be an attempt to course correct.

While the film definitely handles these issues more responsibly than "13 Reasons Why" (and benefits from endearing chemistry between its costars), "All The Bright Places" never manages to strike a balance between telling a cutesy teen romance story and exploring darker themes of suicide and trauma.

"All The Bright Places" follows two teenagers who fall in love in the midst of dealing with traumas from their past.
Netflix

What to know: 'All The Bright Places' remixes the conventions of teen romance stories to explore heavier topics of mental health and suicide

"All The Bright Places" opens with high school social outcast Finch jogging to a pop song. On his path, he runs into Violet, a popular girl who's never noticed him before, standing on the ledge of a local bridge. She seems like she's about to jump. The rest of the movie unfolds in a similar blend of coming-of-age tropes and heavier explorations of mental illness, grief, and suicide.

When Finch convinces her to partner with him on a school project where students document different sites around  Indiana, the pair begin to open up to each other. Violet is experiencing survivor's guilt after losing her older sister in a car accident the year before, and Finch has early childhood trauma and undiagnosed mental health issues that often contribute to his missing school for days at a time.

Finch and Violet's excursions together eventually spark a romance between them, but navigating their own lingering personal struggles begins to interfere with keeping their relationship afloat.

Elle Fanning stars as Violet Markey in "All The Bright Places."
Netflix

Why you should care: The movie is adapted from a popular YA novel and represents an opportunity for Netflix to move forward from '13 Reasons Why' backlash

Given the controversy that Netflix faced over how "13 Reasons Why" depicted teen mental health and suicide, "All The Bright Places" represents a major opportunity for the streaming giant to improve its reputation around those topics, especially for younger viewers.

The movie also features two charismatic leads with whom many viewers will likely be familiar. After recently appearing in 2019 blockbusters like "Detective Pikachu" and "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom," Smith is an exciting new face to watch, and Fanning has been an A-list star since she began appearing movies with her older sister, Dakota Fanning, as a child.

What's hot: Smith and Fanning have charming chemistry, and Netflix handles depictions of mental illness in the film more sensitively than it has with past projects

Elle Fanning and Justice Smith have endearing chemistry in "All The Bright Places."
Netflix

"All The Bright Places" wisely avoids some of the major missteps that "13 Reasons Why" made in addressing similar themes, such as the notion of one person being to blame for another's suicide or showing footage of self-harm that could trigger some viewers.

While actors like Cole Sprouse and "Sex Education" star Asa Butterfield were reportedly considered for the role of Finch, casting Smith in the role places a black teenager's mental health front and center in the story, rather than reserving interiority for white characters like many movies unfortunately still do.

Fanning and Smith have excellent chemistry with one another, and the contrast in their performances (Fanning's Violet is quiet and understated, while Smith oscillates from joy to catatonic sorrow with near-manic energy) creates a fascinating on-screen rapport.

What's not: 'All The Bright Places' abruptly changes its tone from light to devastating, and the film's characters are watered down compared to the original book

Many important character details from the original "All The Bright Places" novel were excluded from the film adaptation.
Netflix/Youtube

The title "All The Bright Places" is very explicitly stated in a monologue in which Violet says that Finch taught her, "there's beauty in the most unexpected of places. And that there are bright places, even in dark times. And that if there isn't, you can be that bright place."

In the original text, this sugary solution for topics as serious as grief and suicide is less trite, because readers spend the entirety of Niven's novel with Finch and Violet alternatively narrating the story and frankly discussing their emotional and psychological scars in the midst of fluffier moments. We also learn more about who they are as people in the book: Finch has a morbid obsession with suicide, which better explains his outsider status at school, and Violet is a passionate writer who's constantly haunted by the loss of her sister.

Voiceovers can be cloying in movies, but the "All The Bright Places" adaptation's decision to fully do away with its main characters' inner monologues makes its shifts from teenage romance to devastating discussions of trauma extremely jarring.

The supporting characters are also remarkably shallow, devoid of almost any dimension outside of pushing the main characters' stories along. Violet's parents (Kelli O'Hara and Luke Wilson) are protective of their grieving daughter, but not so much so that she can't sneak out of the house for hours at a time. Finch says that his sister, Kate (Alexandra Shipp), is always there for him, but she conveniently needs to visit friends or leave for work whenever he's shown at home. Violet's semi-estranged love interest (Felix Mallard) mainly pops up to remind her that Finch is "a freak," or to cruelly ask why she can't get over her sister's death.

"All The Bright Places" ultimately has a heartbreaking, rather sudden ending that could be triggering for some viewers. Some fans have even called for Netflix to add a content warning before the film, and it's disappointing that the streaming service didn't think to do so after the "13 Reasons Why" backlash.

Justice Smith plays Theodore Finch in "All The Bright Places."
Netflix

Overall: 'All The Bright Places' is a modest attempt at responsibly discussing mental health in a teen film, but ultimately comes off uneven and shallow

Viewers would be better off reading Niven's novel, instead of devoting their time to its uneven, shallowly plotted adaptation.

Despite heartfelt performances, "All The Bright Places" feels like an already outdated young adult tale, and is unlikely to stand out amongst Netflix's rapidly growing catalog of coming-of-age films.

Grade: C-

"All The Bright Places" is now available to stream on Netflix. Watch a trailer for it below.

Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider’s parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.Generation Z from Business Insider Intelligence

This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author(s).

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