Turtles All the Way Down (2024) review

Teenager Aza (Isabela Merced) is struggling in school because of her obsessive-compulsive disorder and severe anxiety - her dad also passed away so she lives with her widowed mother (and instructor) Gina (Judy Reyes) - but when the billionaire father of a former acquaintance, Davis (Felix Mallard), goes "missing," Aza and her loyal pal Daisy (Cree Cicchino) try to look for him and collect the $100k reward from the Feds.  While I do appreciate the much-needed attention paid to mental health, unfortunately this follows the John Green Template (if you've read the other books or seen the movies you should be able to pick it up): OCD is depicted as a an extreme biological nightmare (there are a lot of close-ups of bacteria), Aza has a tenuous connection to conveniently wealthy (but barely human) Davis, she gets into a car accident ... and she's finally forced to take the medications she needed the entire time.  It attempts to "smarten" itself up with medical facts, vacant philosophizing and references to Immanuel Kant, but there's too much dead space in the second and third acts, and it tries to become a horror show once Aza takes to chugging hand soap.  For those that don't know, a C. Difficile infection is horrifying ... and you can develop it from taking antibiotics, not just touching things: years ago, my mom got it from being prescribed clindamycin for an abscessed tooth, was admitted to the hospital and recovered (Zinplava to the rescue!).