Judging by its title, The Sky is Everywhere sounds like the AI-generated teen romance you’d get after feeding the algorithm films like The Sun Is Also a Star and Everything Everything. It has all the requisite elements expected in a YA novel adaptation: complicated but likable heroine, world-shattering tragedy (bonus points for death of a loved one), and the possibility of a healing romance (or two). Yet what sets The Sky is Everywhere apart is the unexpected but entirely sure hand of filmmaker Josephine Decker. The auteur behind intense indie psychodramas like Madeline’s Madeline and Shirley doesn’t feel like a natural fit for this generally unchallenging genre. However, what results here is a dreamy love story filled with surreal touches, all in the service of devoting real attention to the interior world of its protagonist.

Decker’s previous films, including Butter on the Latch and Thou Wast Mild and Lovely, are invested in making the audience uncomfortable; even Madeline’s Madeline’s upends the expectations we have about what we’ll feel watching a coming-of-age drama centering on a teen girl. By contrast, The Sky is Everywhere is far more traditional — but only for Decker. This isn’t daring, experimental work, but it is playful and full of whimsy. Animated storm clouds and stars are layered throughout the film, like doodles on teenagers’ shoes. The handheld camera swoops and swoons, offering a heady view of a magical world filled with a gabled house and possibly enchanting roses. The nonlinear approach interrupts current experiences with flashbacks and memories. 

Within its opening moments, The Sky is Everywhere establishes the absence within its broken heart. Teenage Lennie (Grace Kaufman) struggles to move on after the sudden death of her older sister — and best friend — Bailey (Havana Rose Liu). Bailey’s presence is still felt throughout the charming house in the redwood forest that Lennie shares with her grandmother (a luminous Cherry Jones) and uncle (Jason Segel, all warmth) after the death of their mother. Bailey’s boyfriend, Toby (Pico Alexander), lingers in the garden, and Lennie finds herself attracted to him as the one person she thinks can empathize with the extent of her grief. 

Lennie tries to find normalcy at school, but her main identity — as the band’s first-chair clarinet player with hopes of attending Juilliard — founders when she can’t seem to play at all. Meanwhile, the new boy in school, Joe (Jacques Colimon) plays guitar and offers more than just a crush through the promise of healing via their shared love of music. Lennie ping-pongs between the two guys, holding on to her sister’s memory through moments with Toby and grasping at moving on and becoming her own person with Joe.

Though The Sky is Everywhere has far softer edges than the spikes of Shirley and Madeline’s Madeline, they still feel like they’re coming from the same brain. Not everything is spelled out, and some details feel like they’re missing. It’s more impressionistic than the genre often allows, and it’s not always clear whether that’s an artistic choice by Decker and screenwriter Jandy Nelson (who adapted her own novel for the screen) or an unintentional failure of the film. 

Sadness permeates the drama, but there’s still a sense of fun and even euphoria through the experience of first love. The film does heap tragedy on tragedy at times — an excess that might alienate those who weren’t already put off by its ample dose of twee — but it’s never dour. The Sky is Everywhere both comprehends and expresses the sheer immensity of everything you feel as a teen, both the good and the bad.

The Sky is Everywhere is most likely to enchant its Gen-Z target audience with its wildly romantic story set to a tinkling score, but its tenderness and authenticity can have a broader appeal. For a movie that begins with and dwells on death, it’s surprisingly full of life, compelling you to feel every big emotion along with Lennie.

B+

“The Sky is Everywhere” debuts in select theaters and on AppleTV+ tomorrow.