‘Turtles All the Way Down’ Review: A Young-Adult Romance with an Original Dramatic Obstacle: The Heroine Has OCD

variety.com:

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic How’s this for a swoon-worthy romantic moment? Aza (Isabela Merced), darkly beautiful and shy, find herself alone with Davis (Felix Mallard), a rich-kid dreamboat, at his family’s woodside mansion.

They’re having a gentle conversation; the sparks are flying. As the music swells, you feel the time arrive for them to kiss.

At which point we hear Aza’s worried voice on the soundtrack saying, “You’ll get his bacteria in your mouth. His bacteria will make you sick.” Or as she puts it a little later to her psychiatrist (Poorna Jagannathan), “How can I have a boyfriend if I hate the idea of kissing him?” Obsessive-compulsive disorder can take many forms, and in “Turtles All the Way Down,” based on the hugely popular young-adult novel by John Green (“The Fault in Our Stars”), it takes a rather classic one: Aza spends her entire existence terrified of germs — of contamination and infection.

She has a callus on the inside of her middle finger, one that’s been there for years. Every day, she tends it, provokes it, cultivates it; when her OCD gets intense enough, she’ll prod it until it bleeds.