Turtles All the Way Down

“Turtles All the Way Down” makes Aza’s OCD just specific enough to draw us in, then deals with it in a way that’s just manipulative and sugar-coated enough to leave us thinking, “Yep, it’s another YA movie.”

It’s a charming, delightful YA romance that doesn’t bind itself to the sole enjoyment of its target market.

“Turtles,” to its credit, never locates a specious source of Aza’s troubles, nor does it try to unveil a solution to her suffering.

A mostly moving portrait of how one teenager navigates her mind’s unruly terrain.

Being a teenager? It’s not for the faint of heart. Being a Green teen? Well, at least someone is treating you like an adult. The latest Green adaptation, “Turtles All the Way Down,” offers yet another sterling example of that mindset and the power of it.

Manages to bridge the vast and the daily minutiae of high school life with relative aplomb.

Made for the YA crowd, this handsomely made film is part wish-fulfillment in terms of the windfall the girls get from Davis and a solid examination of teen mental health.

There’s no denying that Turtles All the Way Down is still in some measure a gift amidst our bathetic era of YA-facing art, but it's still fair to wish for something better than the cinematic equivalent of a blanket: comfortable, functional, underwhelming.

It’s a great cast, solid direction from actress-turned-director Hannah Marks, and most of the ingredients we can expect to see in John Green’s work.

More ludicrous than perceptive.