It is there where he befriends classmate Maya (Taylor Russell) and soon experiences a sense of hope and belonging for the first time. As he begins testing an experimental new drug, Adam’s mom (Molly Parker) and stepdad (Walton Goggins) enroll him in Catholic school. Throughout the film, viewers are able to watch Adam’s dream of attending culinary school slip away after being expelled in the middle of his senior year. “He attends therapy sessions but they become the narrative frame of the film in that Adam is able to guide us through his own story,” Freudenthal explains, adding that the “juxtaposition” of Adam’s exterior versus interior thoughts “offered a lot of great editing choices and tonal shift.” Centralizing the story on Adam’s voice alone was the “unique element” Freudenthal and Naveda loved from Walton’s story that they hoped to keep in their film adaptation. Throughout the film, Plummer’s Adam narrates his journey by speaking with a therapist and, at times, with the audience. So that was, that was a quick turnaround,” Freudenthal says.Ĭharlie Plummer ( All the Money in the World) stars as protagonist Adam, who delivers both comedic charm and emotional monologues as he endures psychotic episodes. “I think it took less than a year to actually be on the set and start the movie. That’s what interests me about that age group.”Īfter joining forces with screenwriter Nick Naveda - Naveda had penned and directed the indie feature Say You Will - who, Freudenthal says also “loved” the book, Mickey Liddell and Pete Shilaimon of LD Entertainment, whose previous credits include the adventure thriller The Grey and biopic Jackie, came on board to produce the film. “That age group is on sort of the precipice of figuring themselves out of learning to accept who they are… YA I think offers that view to somebody’s life where everything is open, everything’s a question. “What I’m interested in is mostly an emotional angle or a unique character,” he explains. The book is also not Freudenthal’s first foray into the YA genre, as his previous works include helming The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters and episodes of the series The Tick. The director attributes the character’s unique voice and “how he deals with this rollercoaster” as the reason for wanting to bring Walton’s story to life. Walton’s book is formulated around journal entries written from Adam. “I loved that there was a sort of tender, compassionate, funny tone where Adam gets at some of the really tough issues with self-deprecating humor which really functions as a weapon of sorts against his pain.” “We could create a person onscreen that was neither a mad genius nor a violent criminal, who a lot of people could even see themselves in the way I did when I read the book,” he tells THR.
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