He learns that fellow student and former childhood friend of his, Rachel Kushner, has been diagnosed with leukemia and is forced by his parents to befriend her in her time of need.

He brings his iPhone and a portable projector and places a corsage around Rachel's wrist before running the film he made for her on the front wall of her room.

He had worked as a production assistant and second-unit director for Nora Ephron, Martin Scorsese and Alejandro González Iñárritu, and had been looking to direct his first personal film, to express his own cinematic vision and his grief for his late father.

[9][10] Cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung shot the film digitally using Arri Alexa cameras with prime and anamorphic lenses in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio.

[11] A Pittsburgh native, writer Jesse Andrews' family home in Point Breeze was used as Greg's house in the film.

[12] Other locations included Schenley High School (closed since 2008), The Andy Warhol Museum, Copacetic Comics in Polish Hill, and a street corner in West Oakland, which served as an ice cream shop.

[14] Brian Eno scored the film using a combination of previously unreleased recordings and a few original compositions;[15] Nico Muhly composed the music for the beginning high school sequence and final credits.

[17] Differing from the novel, director Gomez-Rejon felt the final film should reflect Greg's artistic growth and express his love for Rachel in an abstract way, using color, texture, and shapes, similar to the work of Stan Brakhage.

[18] The film was acquired by Fox Searchlight Pictures for $12 million in a bidding war hours after its premiere,[19] and won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic and the Audience Award for U.S.

The Blu-ray also includes the featurette, This Is Where You Learn How the Movie Was Made, a conversation with Martin Scorsese and Gomez-Rejon, and a montage of Greg and Earl's short films.

The website's critics consensus reads, "Beautifully scripted and perfectly cast, Me & Earl & the Dying Girl is a coming-of-age movie with uncommon charm and insight.

"[27] weighted average, assigned the film a score of 74 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 40 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

[29] Peter Debruge of Variety wrote that the film "is destined not only to connect with young audiences in a big way, but also to endure as a touchstone for its generation".

[18] Pamela McClintock of The Hollywood Reporter later noted that the film had failed to crossover and connect with mainstream audiences, having grossed just $6.2 million in the 6 weeks after its release.