9. Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005)

Me and You and Everyone We Know

Written and directed by Miranda July

Starring John Hawkes, Miranda July

This film incorporates a series of characters all searching for a way to connect with someone. This film follows Christine, a video artist/taxi driver of elderly people, as she falls in love with Richard, a recently separated father of two who is trying to relate to his sons while waiting for something interesting to happen in his life. The youngest son becomes involved in a sexual-cyber (or cyber-sexual) relationship with a middle-aged businesswoman, while his brother befriends a young girl who is obsessed with domestic appliances and is also used by two teenage girls “coming to terms with their sexuality” by experimenting on him and his intrigued neighbor, who strangely enough, works with Richard at the department store’s shoe section. See? Lots of stuff goin’ on.

I think the characters are really trying to connect with themselves in some way, not only someone else. They are trying to fully realize who they are and what their existence means. And while I think everyone contemplates these very same issues, including myself, I still found it very hard to relate to the characters and all that was going on.

I agree with Nicole that there are certain little things about the movie that are easy to love, but the film in it’s entirety isn’t all that memorable. For an example, there is one scene when Christine is driving in her car, upset after she found out about Richard’s soon-to-be ex-wife. While crying and repeating the F word, she then pulls out a permanent marker and writes that word on her car window shield. I thought it was pretty funny and I actually think about that scene sometimes when driving.

There is also this part when her and Richard are walking down a street and comparing the length of the sidewalk to a timeline of a relationship. She says her thoughts about the idea that the “Iceland” shop is the start to the end of a relationship, which was supposedly ending on the intersection of “Tyrone Street.” I thought that idea and conversation was very cute and fun, but found their appeal to each other completely forced and not real at all.

Everything had this sense of distance and this disoriented aspect. And whether this was on purpose to give the film a quirky feel or just the way I interpreted it, the movie didn’t really stand out to me in any special way.

On the Becki scale, I get it a 2.

(Here is a trailer I found if you are interested in viewing.)