Every A, Every Day

Film adaptation, Every Day by David Levithan, shys away from cliche to create a new kind of romance

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Lydia Wieczorek, Staff Reporter

“Every day I am someone else. I am myself – I know I am myself – but I am also someone else.

It has always been like this.

Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl.There’s never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere.”

Every Day, a novel by David Levithan is a magical kind of contemporary novel that drives you to dive into a world fully blind but submerged in emotion. So naturally, it made sense to have a movie portrayal. This kind of thing can be tough, though as books made into movies often get a bad reputation for being poorly depicted.

Every Day is told from the main character, ‘A’s perspective and covers A’s overcoming of being in a new body each day. Sixteen-year-old Rhiannon falls in love with A when A inhabits her boyfriend’s body for a day. Feeling an unmatched connection, Rhiannon and A try to find each other on a daily basis, always unsure of what or who the next day will bring. Soon, the realities of loving someone who is a different person every 24 hours starts to take its toll. This battle leads the film to its climax in how the pair will solve their ongoing issue.

The storytelling was beautiful, and it was so refreshing to see how A reacts to everything each new day in a new body, live in front of you. The acting felt real and raw from each actor, something that is difficult to translate in the business of literary depictions.

Rhiannon didn’t exactly match her character description—turning out to be more stereotypically beautiful than the book had led her on to be. However, the film used a variety of characters of different ethnicities, genders, and cultural backgrounds to portray A to make up for this, which encapsulated the idea Levithan had in mind for his novel.

It is rare a book, let alone a movie, challenges gender presumptions in a way that is as entertaining as it is unexpected. Perhaps what is most important within viewing this film, whether you have read the book before or not, is that it’s relatable to teens who may not think they need sensitivity training when it comes to sexual orientation and the nature of true love.

And yet, ‘Every Day’ is exactly that. A story that is always alluring, oftentimes humorous and much like love itself — unexpected and without bounds.