Review: ‘The Sky Is Everywhere,’ and so are its very, very big emotions

“The Sky Is Everywhere” is a film simply bursting at its seams. It bursts with color and texture, and the vibrantly voluptuous roses grown by Fiona (Cherry Jones), the grandmother of Lennon (Grace Kaufman) and Bailey (Havana Rose Liu), in the garden of her happy hippie home tucked away in a redwood forest. It bursts with delirious bouts of magical realism that spurt from Lennon’s fervid, feverish imagination, the sky roiling in shades of fiery orange, collages of animated paper clouds, music that makes her swoon and float, and rosebushes that dance in her daydreams. It’s all in service of the film’s own operatic emotions, riding the roller coaster that is teenage love and teenage loss.

Josephine Decker, known for indie darlings such as “Madeline’s Madeline” and “Shirley,” takes on this adaptation of a young adult novel by Jandy Nelson (who also wrote the screenplay) and tackles its big, gooey feelings with all the earnestness and sincerity of a guileless teenager. It may make a viewer long for the tang of acid (just a drop of cynicism, irony or darkness) to temper all these rampant, raging youthful feelings, but the film, in all its unbridled sensitivity, does have a transportive effect, and not just to the cool climes of the redwoods: Remember feeling so freely and so much?

Lennon certainly has a lot to emote about. Her beloved sister Bailey has died suddenly, though not without warning, suffering from the same heart arrhythmia that killed the girls’ mother. Lennon walks through the agonizing process of grieving her sister, a grief that has kept her from school and halted her ability to play music (she’s a gifted clarinetist). Her sister gone, the love that has no place to go pours forth and pools in places both ill-advised — Bailey’s devastated boyfriend (Pico Alexander) — and overwhelming — the new boy in school, guitar-strumming, trumpet-playing Joe (Jacques Colimon). It’s a dramatic tale fit for a Brontë heroine, perfect for the “Wuthering Heights”-obsessed Lennon.

“The Sky Is Everywhere” is impeccably crafted, and Decker approaches the material with the kind of wholeheartedness it deserves. Executing this halfway just wouldn’t have done it justice. Ava Berkofsky’s cinematography is rich and thoughtful, much more than just a gorgeous background for the fantastical animated elements. Kaufman is a really fascinating leading lady too, her Lennon messy, flustered and possessed of an enthralling on-screen gravitational pull.

But “The Sky Is Everywhere” often feels a bit too enchanted with its own quirkiness. The twee levels are off the charts, and there’s no amount of vintage sweaters and slangy lingo that can make playing the clarinet cool, despite Decker’s best efforts and Joe’s claims otherwise. Bailey, seen only in Lennon’s memories, is always in motion, her long hair flowing as she runs, cuddles and dances in the streets. She’s an idealized image, a manic pixie dream dead sister, one that Lennon can never live up to, and she also never feels like a real person. As a viewer, you crave a grounding force for Lennon, which isn’t found in Grandma Fiona or Uncle Big (Jason Segel), a scarf-wearing, pot-smoking hippie who calls his car the truth-mobile and tries to bring dead bugs back to life. While undoubtedly a uniquely creative and singularly emotive film, it can be all just a little too, too much.

Eventually, “The Sky Is Everywhere” does find its emotional ballast, as Kaufman steers through the waves of Lennon’s roiling inner sea. Whether or not that proves to be a worthy journey all depends on whether the audience can hang in for the ride.