Turtles All The Way Down

John Green’s latest work of fiction is now a beautiful film directed by Hannah Marks on HBO’s Max. Being a fan of Green’s work and a fellow Indianapolis resident (born, raised and back!), I’ve been anxiously waiting for this film. While I was more than happy to see it in the comfort of my home, I do wish it had been released to theaters. I think it’s certainly worthy of the silver screen treatment.

Turtles All the Way Down is about a teenage girl named Aza (Isabela Merced) who has obsessive compulsive disorder, commonly referred to as OCD. Through a brilliant opening montage, we get her backstory visually about how her world just fell apart when her father suddenly passed, she spent a summer at “sad camp” with other kids who experienced loss and met a boy named Davis (Felix Mallard). Now at sixteen, Aza and her eccentric friend Daisy (Cree) hear on the news that Davis’s father, a local billionaire, is missing. And there is a one hundred thousand dollar reward for finding him. Ready for adventure and snooping, Daisy convinces Aza to canoe down the White River to Davis’s mansion to look for clues about his father’s disappearance. When they get caught trespassing, Davis vouches for their innocence and reconnects with Aza. The long lost sad camp friends begin their own style of dating, with a few bumps in the road and Aza’s OCD preventing some physical interaction with Davis. 

A lot of Aza’s social interactions are punctuated by her inner OCD monologue. She’ll be sitting at lunch with Daisy and their friend Mychal (Maliq Johnson), but not really listening to the conversation. Instead she is worried about microbes and the callus on her finger that she picks at. Worried about whether she changed the bandaid. Convincing herself that it’s infected, with quick shots of germs and microbes that she is convinced are invading her body. Her thoughts keep spiraling until she suddenly leaves to go wash and change the bandaid to calm the storm. I wondered how this film would visually depict Aza’s anxieties and thought spirals illustrated so well in the novel. I think the quick editing techniques and static sounds utilized here are a great representation of Aza’s OCD that people without it can understand and sympathize with, and those with OCD can appreciate. 

I’m always happy to see my hometown depicted in film, even if it was actually filmed just 100 miles away in Cincinnati. Did you think I wouldn’t notice the Rhinegeist logo? Shoulda gone with Sun King. But hey, I get it, Ohio can pass for Indiana to the untrained eye and probably has less BS for the filmmakers to deal with. I for one would have loved to hear that 465 was shut down for filming the crash scene! But alas… canoeing the White River probably is a health hazard, Aza was not being paranoid about that brown water. But anyway, I enjoyed the very Indy Applebees decor. 

There is so much to unpack in this story and the film does its best in just under two hours. There’s a lot about managing a mental health disorder, the give and take of friendships, budding teenage romance and the debilitating spiral when everything falls apart. These are tough subjects and a lot to explore in one film and some moments could go deeper. But I am glad we got into Daisy’s Star Wars fan fiction! While I think Green’s written work is next to perfect, this film adaptation is just like my beloved Indy: a solid B+. I’d be proud to call it home.

“Maybe I’m like Indianapolis. They have this shit river, but they worked with what they had.”