Josephine Decker's The Sky Is Everywhere is inventive, whimsical and vibrant. Unfortunately, the movie buckles under the weight of its own self-indulgent exuberance. The romantic drama, based on the YA novel of the same name by Jandy Nelson, is all style and no substance. Although the mise-en-scène reflects the unique eye of the director, and there are isolated moments that are truly compelling, the overall picture falls flat. The Sky Is Everywhere may be a visual treat, but it's soured by a complete lack of balance in the story structure, characterization, motivation, and pacing.
The Sky Is Everywhere is a story of grief and love. Teenage music prodigy Lennie Walker (Grace Kaufman) is struggling to cope with the sudden, unexpected death of her sister Bailey (Havana Rose Liu). She's increasingly isolating herself from her best friend Sarah (Ji-young Yoo), her Gran Fiona (Cherry Jones) and her uncle Big (Jason Segel), and finds herself unable to play music — despite that being her biggest passion. She also has found herself torn between two romantic interests: Joe Fontaine (Jacques Colimon), a popular and talented bandmate, and Toby Shaw (Pico Alexander), Bailey's boyfriend before she died.
The Sky Is Everywhere is caught between Decker's luscious direction and ramshackle storytelling. The plot is a mess: the movie varies from lingering on long, metaphoric dream-like sequences to skipping through story points at breakneck speed. The exposition is delivered in clunky fashion, largely told through voice-over narration rather than shown. Audiences are told Lennie is a prodigy rather than seeing how well she could play before her sister died. Audiences are told that she's been blowing off her friend Sarah rather than having a scene where she does so. Audiences are told that Lennie is obsessed with Wuthering Heights rather than ever showing her read it or reference it meaningfully. Over and over again, The Sky Is Everywhere relies too heavily on the narration to tell the story, skipping over key plot points. The movie has a premise, but the story is thin.
While Decker's expressive, fantastical scenes are visually interesting, they aren't supported by a basic story structure, rendering the moments inconsequential and, at times, confusing, garish, or awkward. The pacing in The Sky Is Everywhere is dizzying. The character interactions often feel rushed, and the motivations are non-existent. Lennie, in particular, has abrupt emotional heel-turns that come out of nowhere, largely because the scenes feel so truncated. In more than one instance, these massive tonal shifts are unintentionally hilarious. In one scene, Sarah goes from expressing concern over Lennie's wellbeing to being extremely judgmental in literally her next line, then essentially saying, "I don't like you" to her best friend's face — who is crying about her sister's death and her own feelings of guilt. It feels like a five-minute conversation that was the culmination of several previous scenes, all cut down to fit into 30 seconds of screen time.
The characters in The Sky Is Everywhere are as problematic as the pacing. Lennie — who is the focus of virtually all of the movie — is barely sketched out, vacillating between bubbly, teenage, puppy-dog love and overwrought, uncontainable despair. Lennie's most defining character traits are her tendency to pair bare midriffs with cardigans and her penchant for violent mood swings; it's like a parody of a teenage girl stereotypes. Those around her are largely two-dimensional, made all the worse by cartoonish wardrobe choices. Characters like Big, Sarah and mean-girl Rachel (Julia Schlaepfer) feel ripped from an early 2000s Disney Channel show, complete with the over-the-top, completely unrealistic outfits. Even Bailey feels insincere; the few flashbacks of her and Lennie don't ring true, and unfortunately, the two sisters don't have the kind of chemistry that would explain Lennie's inability to accept her death and move on.
There are so many missed opportunities in The Sky Is Everywhere. The movie is about grief, but Lennie doesn't go through the recognizable stages, even though that would be such an effective way to structure the story. Lennie's obsession with Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is treated as an afterthought, rather than a thematic parallel to her unhealthy relationship with Toby or nod to the novel's similar preoccupation with death, grief, love, and nature. The little notes she writes come across as random, quirky musings rather than attempts to relive moments with her dead sister. It all comes across like the forced whimsy and manufactured twee. The Sky Is Everywhere is a daring film, but ultimately, it doesn't pay off.
The Sky Is Everywhere premiered on Apple TV+ on February 11, 2022. It is 103 minutes long and is rated PG-13 for language, sexual references, and drug use.