Dir. Miranda July, US/UK, 2005, 92 mins Cast: Miranda July, John Hawkes, Brandon Ratcliff, Miles Thompson American performance artist Miranda July makes her feature film début here as writer, director and star. It's an intriguing film which points up the quirkiness of ordinary human beings - Me and You and Everyone We Know - and the way we reach out to each other in various ways and so often fail to connect.
The story is set in a nondescript suburban neighbourhood. July plays Christine, a performance artist, trying hard to make her mark on the local conceptual art establishment and paying her rent by chauffeuring elderly people around town on their errands. She meets Richard (Hawkes), a rather nerdy shoe salesman, who is newly separated from his wife, and tries to strike up a relationship with him, but her over friendliness initially frightens him off. Richard is bringing up his two young sons alone and somewhat erratically. One of his first actions when his wife leaves is to set fire to his hand as a symbolic gesture marking the end of his marriage, which makes one wonder if he 's a safe person to have custody of his children. A thought confirmed by the fact that Robby, played by the frighteningly mature five-year-old Brandon Ratcliff, is conducting an innocently sexy and potentially scary relationship on the internet - he has no idea of the implications of his online conversations. His nine-year-old elder brother (Thompson) meanwhile is drawn to the 10-year-old girl next door, who has a premature obsession with collecting her future trousseau, while at the same time he is the subject of sexual experimentation by two precocious teenage girls. That is when they're not winding up Richard's co-worker Andrew from the shoe shop by flaunting their youthful charms outside his window. The only ones who seem to have got it right are one of Christine's chauffeuring clients and his much-adored elderly new wife - and even that relationship ends up going awry.
Although a lot of the subject matter sounds potentially scary, indicating all sorts of ghastly things that could happen and then don’t, it's handled with great discretion and lightness of touch and is both touching and often very funny in a kind and gentle way. Miranda July is a very talented young woman, who seems to love all her characters and their eccentricities and insecurities. Her onscreen persona is endearingly spontaneous and though the film is somewhat slight on plot, being more a series of well observed incidents, which all finally come together in a somewhat inconclusive way, it's original, well written and directed, rich in character observation, and oddly satisfying.
Carol Allen
ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW is released to buy and rent on DVD and rent on VHS from 30th January 2006
. Special Feature Information:
° Interview With Miranda July
° Cast And Crew Interviews
° Behind The Scenes Footage
° Trailers
. Aspect Ratio: 16:9 Anamorphic
. Main Language: English |
