Rhiannon (Angourie Rice) is for the most part your average teenager. She lives with her parents, Nick (Michael Cram) and Lindsey (Maria Bello), and older sister Jolene (Debby Ryan). She's doing well enough at school, about to begin applying for universities. And she has a boyfriend: Justin (Justice Smith) who, when we first meet him, seems lovely.
The two of them spend an entire day together, sharing and making memories together, and Rhiannon feels this is possibly the best day of her life so far. The two of them end their day together on beautiful terms, but the following day, Justin seems like an entirely different person, and doesn't seem to remember anything from the last 24 hours.
However, Rhiannon knows that in fact it was during the last 24 hours that Justin seemed like an entirely different person, because sadly, she seems to be used to this Justin. And indeed, he was someone different.
You see, the boy she spent the day with has a unique problem. Every morning, he wakes up in someone else's body. It's always someone close to his own age, and located within the same general proximity, and it's never the same body twice. This has been happening his whole life, and he has just had to become used to it.
This 'he' I keep mentioning goes by the name of 'A' (I can't give you the name of the person who plays this character, because of course, it changes all the time). In fact, even saying 'he' is not always accurate, as fifty percent of the time, A inhabits a girl's body.
To add to Rhiannon's woes, her family is becoming more and more dysfunctional by the day. Her father, since having a manic episode many years earlier, is unemployed and spends his days painting portraits of faces, her mother works several jobs just to keep the family afloat, and her sister is caught in the middle of all of this, and ends up taking her frustrations out on Rhiannon.
As A and Rhiannon spend more time together (which isn't easy at first, I mean, would you believe someone if they told you they woke up in a different body every day?), they become close and eventually - of course, as you would expect from a film of this genre - they fall in love. This presents its own set of problems, which I won't go into here, as I want to allow you to experience the same highs and lows as I did watching it, and that is more likely to happen if you don't know what's coming.
The screenplay - by Jesse Andrews - is so incredibly clever and creative, as I mentioned earlier. I'm not sure how much of this is due to Andrews, and how much was actually present in the novel, as unfortunately, I haven't read the book yet (though rest assured, I certainly want to do so now). The way these characters are written - and not just Rhiannon and A, but all of them - is so intricately detailed and intertwined, it's just magical to watch, while at the same time, being devastating to watch in an emotional sense.
The performances of the cast are fantastic. Angourie Rice is stunning as Rhiannon, and it is wonderful to see her in a larger role than she has played before: a task which she steps up to magnificently. Also, all the various people who play A deserve an honourable mention, as they all manage to portray this same character with the occasional individuality that comes from being in different bodies every day.
There isn't much I can say about the music, composed by Vladi Slav and Elliott Wheeler, because there simply isn't much of it. Though I suppose that's something in itself; the music certainly does not overwhelm or overshadow the action, but when it's there, it is beautiful.
Director Michael Sucsy has made an absolutely gorgeous film here, one that I'm sure I will want to watch again very soon. I think the more times I watch it, the more gems I will discover.
8 1/2 out of 10.
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