Max’s Turtles All the Way Down Shows A Latina With OCD

Aza’s story was originally written by John Green in his best-selling novel Turtles All The Way Down. Green’s novel was published in 2017, but in 2024, the film adaptation feels somewhat outdated in its optimistic liberalism and focus on individual responsibility for mental healthcare. Green’s novels speak to a specific time of teenage-focused literature, modeling a specific kind of hopefulness that now feels somewhat falsified and exaggerated as young people across the United States righteously call for a ceasefire in Gaza. As Green has recently come under fire by young people for taking too long to speak on the conflict, and later referring to it as a “war” rather than a “genocide” in a social media post, the dissonance between Green’s late 2010’s stories and a young audience that is fighting for a better world has become painfully obvious. Something in the film feels a little off, like the world it exists in is almost obsolete.