Review of Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) by Markb. — 24 Aug 2005

Macaroni, spaghetti, linguini, gnocchi, vermicelli! Performance artist and freshman filmmaker Miranda July's miraculous film--my favorite of 2005 so far--is a work of breathtaking simplicity that's still challengingly intricate and nearly impossible to do justice to by trying to describe.

As noted elsewhere, it approaches Todd Solondz territory in its circular tale of old folks, divorced people, teens, children, aspiring artists and some very strange individuals endeavoring to make various types of brief or lasting human connections.

..but where Solondz sees frustration and futility, July sees unending hope and possibility. (Nothing wrong necessarily with Solondz' attitude or approach; I think Happiness is one of the great films of the late 1990s.

..but of the two, guess which movie I"LL most likely be watching again at the close of a long hard week?) July is a humanist in the very best sense of the word; her tenderness, compassion and affection toward every character in the film (including a hapless goldfish in a precarious position) shines through in every scene.

It's hard not to walk away from this film without the distincrt impression that it was done by an exceptionally nice person (and interviews with July that I've since read bear this out); the coldest, least likable individual in the movie knocks you for a loop by doing something remarkably generous and touching that just melts your heart--and this happens not once but twice! There's magic in Me and You that would make J.

K. Rowling envious; July ceaselessly pirouettes on a very thin tightrope that threatens constantly to plunge her film into cutesiness or preciousness...but maintains perfect balance from beginning to end.

She adds immensely to her film's success by casting herself and giving a luminous performance as a not-too-successful (and perhaps not all that talented or original) artist seeking other types of fulfillment, primarily in a relationship with a divorced shoe salesman (John Hawkes) who's wounded both literally and figuratively; her facial expression and body language in the last few minutes are as unforgettable as many of her film's other images.

July's character, Christine Jesperson (great name: sound it out!) may be a dead-on parody of July the filmmaker, but the latter's work is anything but sloppy or inexact; savor the perfection of her comic dialogue (my favorite: the shoe guy's speech about not being allowed to touch the customers' feet but being free to touch the shoes all he wants), the sharpness of her staging and the wonderfully precise timing of Michael Andrew's charmingly minimalist score with the tiniest bits of onscreen activity.

Some viewers and posters were offended or disturbed by July's plot threads involving two adolescent girls learning about sexual techniques (in a scene that guarantees that you'll never look at those old TV 'comparison commercials' the same way again!) and a 6-year-old who hilariously gets inadvertently involved with a cybersex website.

In both cases, the material is funnier than anything in Wedding Crashers (high praise indeed) and not coarse at all, but truly insightful and touching because the characters are operating out of curiousity and innocence: July proves once again that no subject matter is out of bounds when handled by a true artist.