Miranda July's feature debut seems like one of those 'love or hate' it things. It's a mix of small stories, varied characters and quite a bit of awkwardness. There aren't any high profile actors, with July herself playing one of the leads. John Hawke is the only recognizable, as you may have seen him in Lost, Deadwood, East Bound and Down, or Lincon. While some will find the conversation to be smart and interesting, others will see it as dull and too drawn out at times. You can find me in the former camp, but definitely felt lulled a couple of times. I like the overall pace of the movie as it actually felt like a pretty quick ~90 minutes.
I thought the acting was pretty solid overall. Hawkes and the young actors stood out the most, but I didn't feel that anybody was horrible. July may have been the weakest, but I think her character was a portrayal of herself in many ways, so it worked.
The score was especially strong for me. Apparently most of it was done on a single keyboard. It was never distracting, but was certainly noticeable a few times... but in a positive way. It flowed well with how I felt throughout the movie, especially during any awkwardness.
Most of this film's delight, I think, relies on its subtext and constant reminders of the general theme here. For me, the movie is simply about people and connecting with others. I hesitate to say relationships, as I don't feel like the point relies on any sort of familiarity or longevity between the people. Be it face to face, through art, jokes, innuendos, chat rooms, shared interests, or lighting your hand on fire... people are trying to connect, and pass the time. People are individuals and we all have our own intricacies, interests and issues. From the right views... we're all pretty much the same at a distance. Peter points this out specifically in his punctuational printout as everyone is nothing more than a spot of ink, but in different positions and in approximations to each other. We all need to come to grips with ourselves...and even when we finally have most of that figured out... we want to share it with others. The film shows that this is something we all go through and struggle with, regardless of age, gender, profession, etc. It instantly made me think of a quote that I've seen tossed around the internet a few times (although, Dr. Seuss did not say/write it):
"We’re all a little weird. And life is weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutual weirdness and call it love."
- Robert Fulgham, True LoveI think it's a generally optimistic film... leaving us with a rising sun in contrast to the sunset in the very first shot. We won't make all the right connections and often won't go about making them in the right way, and many times we'll even try to avoid them for some reason... but we continue to make them, feel a need for them and hope that some stick and provide a bit of happiness.
Many of us look for certain scenes to really stand out. I think the film definitely had a couple, but the most notable for me was Christine's and Richard's walk to their cars. This is one of the more important conversations, I think, as they compare their walk to a relationship. Each sees Tyrone St at a different distance, other people would likely see it differently than them. It encompassed the point of the movie in a well written, well shot, and well executed scene.
I've gone on quite a bit, so I won't dive into each separate story or other individual scenes yet. But there are definitely some interesting scenes, lines and characters. I expect there was a bit if discomfort from the chat room, signs in the window, and the park bench. I think those scenes all provided an intentional sense of awkward tension, but were handled well.
So, I'm sticking with my initial A- grade. Most components felt right and fit together well. I'm usually a fan of eccentric people and things, and this was no exception.
If someone were to ask me what Me and You and Everyone We Know is about, I wouldn't know what to tell them. It's listed as a comedy, or a rom-com, but I don't recall laughing once. Romance? Sure, if you consider a middle-aged man discussing their potential threesome with young teenage girls or a 6 year old chatting about pooping from "my butthole in to your butthole," romantic. Hell yes, we got ourselves the next Casablanca!
ReplyDeleteThe movie is an awkward story, or stories, of dysfunctional (possibly mentally ill) characters traversing their lives, and engaging in one disjointed conversation after another. In her first attempt at making a movie, Director/Writer/Lead Actress Miranda July does do a nice job of presenting the characters, but the entire time I was watching I couldn't help but continue to check how much longer this was going to go on. 90 minutes of watching train crash after train crash of human interaction.
Bobby describes the film as generally optimistic, but I have a hard time seeing that. Hell, the final scene of the movie a character uses the line "Just passing the time." What a horrible thought. Just trudging through your daily lives, struggling to connect to people, and ultimately just passing the time while fighting your own internal demons. Eternally pessimistic and almost to unfortunate to watch.
While I didn't like the film, I will say it was made well and had some especially strong performances from Miles Thompson (Peter) and Brandon Ratcliff (Robby). The underwhelming soundtrack seemed particularly appropriate. Overall, I give it a B-, bumping it out of the C range because the actors did such a nice job of making my skin crawl.
The final scene is a man, alone... passing the time, every single morning. I think that's an implication of what we do when we're not making connections with people. It's sort of... either we share our weird little worlds or we're just passing the time. Then Robby comes along and makes a connection with him.. even if ever so slight. He passes the quarter along as if he doesn't need it anymore, at least temporarily.
DeleteI guess that sorta makes sense with the rest of the movie? I guess connections are important or not-important. Maybe they're just connections. I don't know, I feel like it was still out of place and really added nothing to the movie.
DeleteWhat if I told you… Boring people can be interesting.
ReplyDeleteWhat if I told you… Weird people are the new normal.
What if I told you… Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
Kidding. I’m not gonna pull that again. Well, not entirely. Thank God this is more interesting because Robby is the fucking man.
Christ. This is weird. The teen on teen blow job. I mean, what? Do I need to delete my Netflix account and throw away my computer to throw off the feds now?
I spent half of the movie wondering how John Hawkes’s character could be so dumb. I began to wonder if we were gonna have an idiot savant moment like in 8.5 Blocks. Ah, Mos Def just a semi-literate bake, or is he?!? He’s just kind of a boring, weird, self-involved dude. I totally buy Hawkes in this roll. Dingo, however, got so bored that he farted in his own face during one of the scenes with Hawkes.
Artist lady is crazy, but kinda quirky crazy. Like no one is that forward, self-aware and crazy at the same time. This role was written for women to relate. “See, I don’t all feel like I belong. I’m such an outcast. I’m so weird. If only I were normal like all the other girls. Maybe this strange man will notice me. People probably think I’m so dumb, but I’m really so insightful!” I’m just not buying it. In real life, either the girl is weird or interesting, it’s not both. The self-loathing in the video is just the worst. “Feel sorry for me! I’ve earned your sympathy! I’m worth it! Macaroni! I’m so quirky.”
Also, though I appreciate mocking the one guy’s art with the hamburger wrapper thing, her art is just as crappy. I guess maybe that’s the point, that art is pretty subjective. But there’s a lot of dumb “art” out there. A hipster calling other commercial art doesn’t make their art any better. There’s an “artist” who has a piece up in a coffee house near me. It’s just Crayola marker doodles. It makes me want to punch someone. So does artsy girl’s recordings. That’s not talent. That’s recording your daydreaming. Pretty sure Cash could do that. Congrats, Joe, your son in an artist.
The internet sessions with Robby and the adult on the other end are more idiot savant stuff. That’s right, kids just know exactly what to say to adults on a sex chat. I ain’t buying that part either. Though poop jokes are funny and Robby is a boss.
And the next door little girl. So smart and creative! I’m looking forward to Geoffrey being so intelligent and full of wisdom at such a young age. Art!
Some of the symbolism is a bit too obvious. The kids in the double pink slide was a bit much. The scene going from the pervert shoes salesman to the kids was alright. Kids are so innocent. So innocent. He takes of the bandage. It’s so sensitive and needs air. The hand needs to open and be a father to his kids. The women who chooses art is not only full of shit, but wants to be full of shit too! I guess they were at least less subtle than Don’t Be A Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood when Damon Wayans kept yelling, “Message!” But even The Wire was more subtle than this.
This movie just made little sense. I guess it was supposed to be artsy, but I fear I’m not smart enough to be a part of this club to really get it. I would likely never watch this again, but at least they tried something I suppose. But sometimes weird just isn’t eccentric. And most of the time eccentric isn’t anything good. The saying, “Poor people are crazy. Rich people are eccentric” applies here. We’re supposed to buy this because she’s artsy or some other hipster garnage. But that does make it good. It’s just weird. I’m sorry I’m too dumb to get it.
To quote Blair, “That movie was just a bunch of shit. Put together. Back and Forth.” I had this movie at a C+ until Blair said that. And she’s right. This movie is a mess of nothing.
C- only because I like John Hawkes.
I think all of these people are realistic. Now, would we find them all to this extent in one little place at the same time? Maybe not. But I've met people like July's character (Drew mentioned one of them, that we both know), who is very self aware, forward and quirky. I hesitate to say 'crazy' as we're entirely too careless with that word these days as a negative for people who are different in ways we don't like or get. We've all known idiots like Hawke's character. We were all kids and teens once, and knew plenty of people who we saw as 'odd' at the time. But I think that's a bit of the point.. they characters are exaggerated to show that they're looking for connections too.
DeleteI’m going to echo Shane a lot here – our thoughts were pretty similar.
ReplyDeleteMe and You and Everyone We Know is, if nothing else, interesting and a bit thought-provoking. Writer/Director/Star/Probable-Present-Day-Starbucks-Barista Miranda July offers us a glimpse at love and relationships in the dawn of the digital age. While there are the bones for a strong idea here, July’s handling of the matter ultimately felt extremely clunky and not terribly entertaining.
Subtlety was not a strength of this movie in several instances. Several scenes felt ham-fisted and not genuine. The fish scene and the walk past the Ice World or whatever place in particular had this feel. July is practically screaming at the audience “Hey! This is a metaphor! Let me tell you exactly how it is a metaphor! I’m not going to let you rubes mess up this interpretation later!” Both July’s character Christine and Cousin Dustin as Richard had multiple scenes like this as well – Richard talking about the shoe’s hurting Christine felt like one of those in particular. I watched the movie in two sittings, and after the first half, I was contemplating just writing the review based on Act One only.
Fortunately, most of those scenes were gone in the second half. It’s almost as if July got better at writing the screenplay as the movie went. She also learns to trust the audience to draw certain meaningful parallels. I liked the parallel drawn between the two shoe salesmen and the two artisitic types – one a hopeless romantic (Richard and Christine), the other a depraved fetish monster (Andrew and Nancy). July goes further to create a sense of foils between Andrew and Nancy, with Andrew meeting his, uh, “partners,” only to become terrified when it gets real, while Nancy builds trust and is ultimately crushed upon learning her suitor is a child. Oh internet chat dating, never change. It was nice to have these parallels between people with similar backgrounds, proving that the person you present to the world is not necessarily the person you actually are in your love life.
We end up with roughly the same conclusion from every story: we all need love, no matter the form. Whether it’s in the traditional sense, the purely physical sense (the two girls), even the oldest way in western civilization (a dowry?), we all have the same basic need. Length of time is also brought up several times, with the Michael/Ellen relationship showing the audience it’s never too late (and drawing the super-obvious fish metaphor in). Overall, a good message and an interesting commentary on what kids at the time thought of love and relationships. (No point in delving into Robby any more then was already said.)
But like I said, it wasn’t particularly entertaining. I’m always a fan of a plot-driven narrative over character-driven, but I’ll take character-driven over these “slice of life” movies any day. None of the stories are compelling. July, who is ostensibly the star, is not a great actress. Several of the actors are pretty bad in fact – Peter was brutal (surprised Joe liked him), Rebecca was meh at best, and Nancy was exceedingly boring.
I like a movie with a message, but you also gotta be entertaining and a little subtle along the way. It feels like a great idea on paper, but ultimately there were too many missed opportunities and too much reliance on bad actors. But, it did inspire a great Cards Against Humanity card at least. (Yeah, I had heard that “pooping” phrase before b/c it’s in the game.)
+Interesting ideas
+Ultimately gets its message across…
-In a terribly clunky way
-Not entertaining
-A handful of pretty bad actors
Grade: A gentleman’s C-
Between this and Drinking Buddies, we’ve got two distinct flavors of independent cinema. Drinking Buddies is small and naturalistic, concerned only with characters and relationships. Me and You and Everyone We Know is quirky and abstract, laying in metaphor after metaphor for its thematic purposes. I much prefer the first kind. Miranda July (that’s a terrible name) is way too focused on what she’s trying to say to have created people that exist in the real world.
ReplyDeleteHawkes and July as the main characters are the worst offenders. Hawkes gets off to a terrible start with lighting his hand on fire like an idiot, and is key to the film’s most hamfisted metaphor, as his newly-healed oversensitive hand reaches for July’s card. July is garbage from the beginning with her art project. The whole fish interlude is terrible. I think about the face I would make at the person who asked me if I wanted to say a few words over a dead goldfish, and I wonder if I could do it without spraining my forehead. July writes Fuck on her windshield because she feels so, so angry and just can’t… keep… it… inside. I hated every second her character was on screen. I’m completely with Shane in that I don’t get the kind of art she makes, and subscribe to the themes put forward in My Kid Could Paint That, a documentary about how that whole genre is driven more by the story behind the artist than the work itself. A film that treats that world seriously is establishing hurdles for itself that my powers of empathy aren’t strong enough for.
The kids are the best parts, because quirkiness in children is more interesting than quirkiness in adults. It feels natural in people who don’t know any better. There is a theme running through the movie of kids playacting at adulthood, both in the actual minors and the adults themselves. The youngest kid fakes being an adult in the chatroom and walks home by himself through a sketchy neighborhood, the little girl maintains a hope chest, and the teenage girls attempt to demystify sex with Coover from Justified. This is acceptable indie stuff for my taste, and would make a fine movie if the adults were cut out. Where the film completely loses me is in applying that same standard to Hawkes and July. It’s not cute, it’s not charming, it’s just goddamn annoying.
I think Bobby writes a great review. I can see that stuff in the film. There are occasional bursts of truth here, conveyed clumsily, but here nonetheless. The initial meeting between July and Hawkes, in which he tells her how crazy it is to accept pain as normal instead of fixing the problem, has a lot going for it. The problem is that those chunks of wisdom are drowning in insufferable quirk. The quote Bobby gives is solid, but these people are too weird to live. I’m not rooting for their relationship; I’m rooting for their imminent deaths.
There is an interesting idea in the dot printout. The older kid points out to his brother which dots they are, but that is only true because he says it is. He could have said they were represented by any two dots on the page, at any space on it, or he could have said the dots weren’t supposed to represent people at all. There’s no pattern to the printout, it’s just a bunch of periods and commas in random order. It’s devoid of meaning beyond the meaning the older kid places on it, much like the differences in meaning I and Bobby put on this movie. It doesn’t mean he’s wrong, or I’m wrong; it just means he interpreted what he was looking at as something deep and poignant and I was looking at a bunch of pixels.
July has rightly been bagged on as a bad actress. I need to have sympathy for or interest in a character, and I have neither with her. I much prefer Hawkes when he plays intimidating characters like in Winter’s Bone or Martha Marcy May Marlene. He doesn’t particularly impress here as a nice, weak guy. We’re divided on the performance of Miles Thompson as the older son, but I thought he did very well as an affectless teen, equally emotionless while getting an attachment-free beej or making friends with the neighbor girl.
ReplyDeleteI’m pretty unhappy with this film. We’re at maximum levels of eccentricity here, and it overshadows what the film is trying to say. I was consistently agitated while watching, telling the characters to Fuck Off more than once. There were enough solid scenes to get us out of the D-range, but just barely. I’m going with a C-, though in actuality, it’s closer to a C---.
I don't exactly have a review like the others. Like the movie, I'm going to be unique and do this my own way.
ReplyDeleteNot going to lie; I had no idea what the hell was going on. Just seemed like this was a movie about people with problems.
The teen girls talking who can give the better blow job? That's just weird. Yeah, maybe it happens in real life but I don't want to be subjected to seeing it.
The little brother was funny. The IM about the poop was something I could see Shane or Sean do.
Christine reminded me of this friend named Stephanie but she goes by Jae. They both did odd crap in front of the camera that made you wonder why you were watching it.
When the kid met the woman at the park, that solidified the very beginning of online communication. Rather ironic. I liked the song that played when she walked away.
All in all, this movie was too weird. I wasn't interested in it as the story was random. I have to agree with Jon on a lot of his assessment. What I liked about it was Robbie. He made it for me. From now on, )< >( will make me laugh. The randomness, however, was too much. I couldn't get into it. Grade: D++
Weird ass movie about a bunch of broken people.
ReplyDeleteIn many ways the movie reminded me of movies like Love Actually- several non-related stories connected by mutual relationships. Unfortunately I think the indie nature meant they could only afford a dozen characters and July wasn't strong enough in filling in the details to keep the stories disconnected enough for the moments they did connect to mean anything.
Amazingly the best part of this movie was the kids. Either the 6 year old is a genius ad-libber or July's 1 skill is writing like a 6 year old. Most movies with kids usually run two options- they make the kids fade to the background or they pump up the kids dialogue several years so they can use the children to teach the adults.
You guys call it weird but I was really happy older brother got the BJ. I thought for sure when they presented the idea he was going to decline based on the way they clearly think of him. He even played it cool and said it was a tie- he was hoping for round 2 the next day.
Solid D but the 2 brothers let me go C-
My main thought after reading everyone's reviews: we're the brothers actually good in this movie? I made my thoughts on Peter known - I think the nicest thing I could say is he took a fairly easy role and didn't fuck it up. It's not hard to look emotionless when you're getting fake-blown. It's not hard to look emotionless, period.
ReplyDeleteAs for Robby, July wrote one ridiculous joke, and he ran with it. That seemed to me like 90% of his role. Did we really like his performance? Or did we just like that had that joke? I think there's a difference in liking the character vs liking the performance. Robby was a fun character, but was Brandon Ratcliff really good at portraying him?
It's hard to distinguish for this kind of performance. With a teenage character, an emotionally stunted portrayal is a fine choice, as there are plenty of actual teens that aren't phased by anything and act like brick walls. Whether or not the credit goes to July or the actor is an open question. It doesn't seem like it's that difficult, but when an actor gets a well-written part, any flaws in their talent level can be covered by the script.
ReplyDeleteWith Robby, I'm in the same place. I thought he was written believably, but it's impossible to tell if that kid is going to become a good actor, or if he was when the movie was filmed. Are kids that young even capable of acting in the same way John Hawkes is acting, or do they just read lines and knit their faces up into whatever the director wants? I think the best a kid actor below ten can hope for is to not be distracting, and I think Ratcliff pulled that minimum off.
"I think the best a kid actor below ten can hope for is to not be distracting, and I think Ratcliff pulled that minimum off."
DeleteNot sure I agree with this statement. We've seen some pretty incredible child actor performances throughout the years. We had a six year old nominated for best actress two years ago! I know that kind of stuff is the exception, but if that's the criterion for kids under 10, then we have a lot of kids who should have some oscar nominations.
There was a lot of controversy around that nomination among critics about if that performance could be called a performance, or just a charismatic kid who happened to be in front of a camera.
DeleteThe best child performances have all taken place after ten, with the exception of Tatum O'Neal in Paper Moon, who was 9. My understanding of acting is that you have to get inside the character and react to what's happening as the character would react. I question whether or not a kid in 1st or 2nd grade has that mental capability.
I was just commenting that every character under 18 was more interesting than every character over 18. Whether that was acting or writing I didn't care because it was a mediocre at best movie for me. I would agree that it's more likely those 5 parts were better written than the adult parts. Maybe its the arthouse nature of things but I get the impression that July put a lot of herself into the story and maybe she has been writing it for much of her own life pulling different aspects of her own personality and that of people around her- therefore she has developed those characters better.
ReplyDeleteWell, really, it's a movie that pretends to be smarter than it is. It's like the shitty art people make, it doesn't take skill, but it takes an interesting backstory to make it "art." Because the story it self is simple, complex characters like adults just aren't going to fit. The kids are simple and therefor fit.
DeleteI'm not even sure it pretended to be smart. It's not like it tried to be subtle... it laid it's message out there pretty thick. I think it was just trying to be... artsy, but not necessarily smart.
DeleteYep, this was a big one of my gripes. Lacking subtlety is fine at times - screaming the metaphor at the audience is ham-fisted.
DeleteLike I said in my review, give me a quirky teen over a quirky adult any day of the week. I have so much less tolerance for eccentricity in someone with actual responsibilities. The first thing John Hawkes does is put his life at risk as a father and provider for a stupid trick gone wrong. That just obliterates any goodwill I'm going to have for him, whereas it's totally fine for his youngest son to chat with strangers on the internet, because he's a dumb kid who doesn't know any better and is left unsupervised by his father.
ReplyDeleteWell, he didn't think it was a risk... not really cause he's quirky, but because he's pretty stupid and used lighter fluid instead of alcohol. Not that it makes what he does any better... but i found him less eccentric, and more idiotic... but not bad people.
DeleteI've decided that I am changing my grade. Reading the reviews reminded me of the parts of the movie that I really didn't like. Such as the hand scene and that stupid fucking car scene with the fish. That fucking car scene and the stupid unresponsive approach almost made me turn the movie off. It really did piss me off that much. In fact the other scene that pissed me off took place in a car as well. When he told her to get out of his car I wanted to punch him in the face. I'm officially down to a C-.
ReplyDeleteFollwer! Quitter! Boooo!
Deletehttp://www.homeonderanged.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/social-pressure4-e1372658111197.jpg
Delete1. John Hawkes might be my dad (see Facebook).
ReplyDelete2. The immersion blender is a classic. We got one last year. It's probably my #3 go to small kitchen appliance. Just behind grinder and food processor.
There is something cute about this movie that I was drawn to the first time I saw it and again now. Yes, it's a disjointed story of connected people, but each character is weird in the interesting sort of way.
My favorite characters were the old man and the two boys. The old man was sweet and genuine, can't beat that. The boys typing out characters in ASCII is awesome! Been there, done that.
The only character I didn't enjoy was the art critic. And the worst scene was her kissing the boy on the cheek - very strange.
I'm going B+. Better late than never.