Sarah Vincent//Blog Writer
In January of 2016, I took a flight to Florida from T.F. Green Airport in Providence, RI, that changed my life. As we do every year before a family vacation, my mother and I drove to the local B.J.’s to find several books to bring with us. I saw the front cover of All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven, and fell in love before even reading the few lines on the back that gave away a few details.
All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
It was blue. It had eight sticky notes on the front. Two columns, four rows. The left side had one word from the title in each note, and the right side had two small drawings; a black bird and a purple flower. It stuck out to me, so I picked it up and put it in my carriage without thinking any more about it.
I didn’t revisit All the Bright Places until I was sitting on a plane, squished between my sister and a stranger who tried to derail my dive into the world of Violet Markey and Theodore Finch by loudly snoring throughout the entire flight. Fortunately for me, when I immerse myself into a book, there’s almost nothing that can pull me out.
It took me thirty minutes to fall in love with Violet and Finch. The two main characters were both hurting, and from the tone of the book, I could tell that my heart was going to fill to brim with love for these two, but I also knew that it was going to shatter. For three hours, I kept waiting and waiting and waiting for my heart to break, and when it finally did, I still wasn’t ready for it.
This book was what I had been craving. It had two characters who portrayed mental illness in a new way for me, and it felt real, and authentic. It became that Jennifer Niven was who I aspired to be. It was a book that I wished I had written, before I had even known I wanted to be a writer. It was actually this book that led me to choose Emerson College to pursue my love for writing. I made all of my friends read it, and I made my mom and my sister read it. I gushed about it to my boyfriend, who was very jealous of my love for Finch and VIolet’s relationship. No one else really understood my love for it but it was fine with me because it kept the book my own.
I had mixed feelings when I heard that it was going to be made into a film.
My initial reaction was pure bliss, and excitement. I couldn’t wait to see Violet and Finch’s relationship come to life. I couldn’t wait to simply see who would play my two favorite characters. I was already planning my trip to the movies, alone, with my box of tissues by my side. But, at the same time, I could wait.
If you have ever anticipated a movie to come out that was based off a book that you loved, you know that once you see it, you either love it or hate it. It’s either non-stop praise, followed by five more trips to the theater to see the movie, or it’s disappointment and sadness upon leaving the theater. I couldn’t help but think about all the times I had been let down by a movie because the book was so much better. It worried me, because I couldn’t imagine someone doing an injustice to my favorite book by making the script stray from the book, or choosing the wrong people to play Violet and Finch. I wanted it to be perfect, and I wanted it to be a movie that changed some of the stigma around mental illness. I wanted people to see the movie and then run to buy the book because it was just that good. But I was scared none of that would happen. I was scared that I would hate everything about it.
My anxiety was eased when Jennifer Niven tweeted out that she would be writing the screenplay for the movie, and that Elle Fanning would be portraying Violet Markey. I released a sigh of relief. The script wouldn’t stray, and someone I had imagined playing Violet was actually going to play her. It felt like all was well in the world. Until I saw the list of potential Finches.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like any of the choices, it was that there were almost too many. Every week a new option would arise and it felt to me that the options were “too” famous or well-known. Cole Sprouse was an option, Harry Styles made an appearance and Logan Lerman was talked about. To me, I wanted my Finch to be someone up and coming. I still do feel that the actor who plays him should be someone who doesn’t really have a name for himself yet, because I have faith in this movie making a name for the actors involved. It also still worries me who will play Finch. There hasn’t been any choices made, and my biggest fear is that whoever gets chosen won’t be able to portray his character well enough. He’s complex. He has issues and he is smart and funny and his love for Violet is fresh and important; he has big shoes to fill, and I just hope that the actor who does play him is able to live up to the standards that I have set for him.
The movie is set to continue filming throughout 2017, and into 2018. Finch has not been revealed yet, but I have a feeling that he ultimately was chosen a while ago, and it is just a stunt to make the movie more viral when it comes to theaters. It was set to be done by Fall of 2017, yet here we are, still waiting. Now, release date is still hazy, yet it is expected to be done by sometime next year in 2018.
Either way, you know where to find me the first week that it hits theaters.