This latest adaptation of a YA romance is essentially a surprisingly likable new version of the John Travolta TV movie from the 1970s, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. A teenager in exile falls in love and risks her life for that love.
The sick teen in love is Maddy Whittier (the lovely Amandla Stenberg, better known as Rue from The Hunger Games). Her rare case of SCID (severe combined immunodeficiency) means she gets to live in a cool house full of windows and an airlock. Then she meets the cute, moody new boy next door, Olly (Nick Robinson, The Boys of Summer), and the bubble of her perfect existence bursts.
The two young leads are incredibly charming, which helps alleviate some of the bumpy plot-holes once they abscond to Hawaii. A credit card is too simple of an explanation for how these high schoolers acquire plane tickets, rental cars and hotel rooms. Directed by Stella Meghie with the impeccable taste and well-appointed style of Nancy Myers, were she in charge of a spread for Hermetically Sealed Living, Everything, Everything comes off a lot better over an hour and a half than it did in a two-minute trailer.
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