EVERY DAY (2018)

EVERY DAY is a unique teenage romance about a girl who becomes intrigued by a mysterious personal spirit or entity that every day inhabits a new human body of the same apparent age. EVERY DAY starts off rather confusing, fails to gather any real momentum, has a convenient twist at the end, and suffers from an average level of craftsmanship. It never really answers its central mystery, which is based on an unbelievable, heretical and goofy spiritual impossibility that’s unbiblical and rather dangerous. EVERY DAY also promotes teenage romance without any divine or biblical guidance and contains some foul language and pro-homosexual elements that will offend media-wise viewers.

Based on a young adult novel, the movie opens on a sleeping teenager named Justin who wakes up and goes to his suburban school. He interacts with Rhiannon, his girlfriend, who wonders why Justin is more attentive than usual. She suggests they do something, so they decide to skip school for the day and drive down to a beach near Baltimore.

At the beach, “Rhee” and Justin share some personal thoughts and emotions they’ve never really shared before this. Rhee even tells Justin about her father, who lost his job, suffered a nervous breakdown and now stays home painting portraits of various people. Her mother had to get a second job to make ends meet. At the end of the day, Justin drives her home and kisses Rhee good night, and Rhee says his breath is better when he hasn’t smoked.

The next day at school, Justin seems much more distant. Rhee sees him smoking a cigarette while talking to his male friends in the morning. Justin finally says hello to Rhee, but he says he doesn’t even remember the day at the beach. Rhee’s best friend asks her why she puts up with Justin’s rude behavior, but Rhee defends him.

At a teenage party that weekend, Justin seems more interested in his friends than Rhee. However, a handsome boy named Nathan is very friendly, and seems like a nice, fun guy. He and Rhee dance, but this makes Justin jealous. Confronted by Justin, Nathan lies and says he’s the gay cousin of another boy. Nathan and Rhee end up talking in a treehouse, but Justin finds out Nathan’s not the other guy’s cousin. He and his friends run Nathan off and throw a rock at his car as he drives away. The next day, a news report says Nathan woke up in his car, claims not to remember how he got there and says he feels like he was possessed by Satan.

Eventually, Rhee meets several other friendly strangers, a couple of whom send her texts to meet them. The strangers claim they’re some kind of human spirit or personal entity that each day winds up in another person’s body of the same age, male or female. Calling themselves A, they claim to have inhabited Justin’s body the one day that she went with Justin to the beach. A explains to Rhee that they try not to abuse the opportunity of being in another person’s body and work to leave the person’s life as unchanged as possible. However, now that A has met Rhee, it wants to keep seeing her.

Rhee agrees to this, then when A inhabits the body of Alexander, a nerdy but handsome, kind and likeable loner at her high school, the heady combination makes Rhee fall deeper in love with A. She asks A to try to stay in Alexander’s body and it works. However, after a few days, both Rhee and especially A begin to wonder whether what they’re doing is right and will truly make them happy.

As noted above, EVERY DAY starts off rather confusingly. It doesn’t start to explain what’s happening until about midway into the first act. The plot starts to thicken at that point, as they say, and the story and characters become more interesting.

However, the plot fails to gather any real momentum and even has a couple gaps that are perplexing. It also has a rather convenient twist at the end, to enable the heroine to find the happiness she seeks. Thus, the real Alexander turns out to be just as much fun, likeable, worthwhile, and even profound a partner for Rhee as the entity called A.

In addition, EVERY DAY never really answers its central mystery. Who or what exactly is A? And, how does the type of spiritual possession of another being’s body it does actually work? Of course, as informed Jews and Christians know, or at least should know, the idea that another human spirit or sentient entity, demonic or not, can possess your body and mind without your permission or without doing something like ingest heavy drugs or dabble in occult activities, is not a possibility. As such, it’s a kind of heretical and seriously abhorrent idea that violates orthodox Christian, biblical teaching. The idea is also a bit goofy and unbelievable, even in a story that’s clearly a fantasy.

EVERY DAY also promotes teenage romance and kissing without any divine or biblical guidance. Three scenes also show Rhiannon next to a different boy possessed by the entity and wearing no shirt. Sex is not necessarily implied in these scenes, but they clearly involve some kind of hanky-panky. In another scene, Rhiannon agrees to kiss one of the teenage females that A possesses. This pro-homosexual content also will offend many, as will the idea that a spiritual entity can be perfectly at ease in both a male and female body. Clearly, EVERY DAY has an abhorrent view of sexual identity that’s contrary to biological fact and biblical rationality.

Though apparently the sex, drugs, alcohol, and foul language involving teenagers in the original novel have been toned down for this movie version, EVERY DAY still has some foul language and sexual allusions. As noted above, Rhiannon clearly makes out with three of the boys that A inhabits. There’s also a sequence at a teenage party where some teenagers are apparently drinking alcohol.

The sexual allusions and immorality involving teenagers, coupled with the heretical theme of spiritual possession, makes EVERY DAY an abhorrent, unacceptable movie. The movie’s foul language is less offensive. The only good news in the movie is that neither Rhiannon nor A drink or smoke, that Rhiannon and her parents bond in a couple scenes, and [SPOILER ALERT] that Rhiannon and A decide it would be wrong for A to inhabit Alexander’s body forever or for Rhiannon to establish a permanent, close relationship with A through the different bodies he inhabits. In fact, A makes a sacrifice by never seeing Rhiannon again.

Secular leftists have praised the original novel on which this movie’s based, mostly for its gender-bending aspects. However, they do not understand the theological and philosophical problems with the story. And, they don’t seem to care about the novel’s apparent promotion of teenage promiscuity, cursing and substance abuse. Very strange.