Summary
Every Day provides a lacklustre and simply boring story about a shy teenager who falls for someone who transforms into another person every day.
If Every Day demonstrates a single truth, it’s that we are running out of genuine ideas for teen drama movies. Whether it’s a goofy high school comedy or a sweet mellow romance, we are left hanging dry with seen-it-before 90-minute films. I am in my late 20s, so I cannot be the voice of reason for this type of film, but all I can say is that I was overwhelmingly bored by the story.
That’s not to say that I was not intrigued by Every Day. The narrative has all the bearings of a charming romance whilst cozying up with your date, except you’d get bored and do anything but watch the film. Rhiannon (Angourie Rice) is a character that represents the routine lost high school girl who does not know what she really wants. As usual, the story sets itself in that awkward time in between high school and college; the classic coming-of-age narrative arc that triggers the journey ahead. Her boyfriend, for all intents and purposes, is the usual kid that is yearned for but has the personality of a peanut, so it comes as a surprise to Rhiannon that one day he takes her on a wonderful day out. To her bewilderment, it was not her boyfriend, it was someone inside her boyfriend’s body who moves to another body every 24 hours at midnight.
Every Day is kind of a body switch film, apart from there is no switch and we have no idea who is taking over the bodies. The person does not go by a gender either, we just know them as ‘A’, which at first I thought was a sneaky code for Asexual, but this person clearly has sexual desires, so if anything the movie is trying to represent this being as gender neutral. Every Day felt like a confusing time, with Rhiannon seemingly falling for this “person”, but appears way more into it when “A” is hosted by an attractive young man. In fact, the movie makes a point of it, as Rhiannon on at least two occasions tells “A” her preference, which leads to an awkward scene when “A” is a girl and asks her if they can kiss. To summarise this confusing narrative experience, the lead character is dating a gender-neutral being that takes over bodies and wants her physically and emotionally, disregarding Rhiannon’s sexual preferences at times. That’s what I got from it anyway.
Regardless of the unique approach, the obvious problem of Every Day is that the director and writers do not understand how real people interact. The body language and dialogue is patently wooden, with no character grabbing any scene by the throat to make it their own. Maybe this is an easy market. I suspect that is the case, but I can’t ignore lazy writing at this level, especially when it has all the ingredients to be interesting. If only the lead character showed an ounce of passion the movie may have made it somewhere, but instead, you have a film that sends the wrong messages, sags halfway through, and makes you painfully bored.
Teen drama media tends to be commonplace now, which you’d expect with a growing industry of young people wanting to make it. The likes of 13 Reasons Why hits the right chords but Every Day is everything that is wrong with this genre.
