By Comet Ziemer
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is a best selling book that has sold more than 700,000 copies. And now, the hit coming of age story has hit the big screens all across the U.S. Directed by Aitch Alberto and produced by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the movie tells the story of Aristotle and Dante, two Mexican American teenagers who work together to figure out themselves and what their place is in the universe. As a very big fan of the book, I was nervous walking into the theater, but I can say that I was pleasantly surprised.
The first thing that I noticed quite a bit was the pacing. At first, it felt a bit off. It felt like some points and characters were overlooked more than they should have been, or that things weren’t given a whole lot of detail. I I remembered that it was exactly like that in the book. I appreciated how that acted as a bit of a reference to the book, and really made readers automatically connect with the movie.
The acting in this movie was very well done. The two that played Aristotle and Dante matched the character’s personalities perfectly. Even though I was already familiar with the characters through the book, I found myself feeling so connected with Dante’s character especially and realizing how much of the story I understood and related too.
One of the major lessons that the movie carries that I heavily relate with was the idea that no matter how old you are or who you were born from, you are never expected to do or be a certain way. You can be in highschool and not know how to swim. You can struggle with your identity and not have it figured out. And you can love without forcing yourself to be a different person. So much of the story is based around finding where you belong, and it brought me close to tears on many occasions. This was one of the things that I feel like transferred perfectly from the book to the movie.
I do feel like a major problem I had with the movie was that there didn’t feel like a whole lot of emphasis on the “Discover the secrets of the universe” part of the story. I kind of just felt it only really focused on the relationship between Aristotle and Dante and how they got together and not really about the process of them trying to discover themselves and their purpose in life.
Overall, I really enjoyed the movie. It was so nice seeing such a diverse story on the big screen. It was very enjoyable to watch and had so many funny moments and it re-ignited my love for the story. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who just wants to see a nice movie either by themselves or with some friends. Also, you should read the book while you are at it!
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