Quirky, Original Me and You a Mixed Meeting

Miranda July’s debut feature, and award-winner at both the 2005 Cannes and Sundance Film Festivals, not to mention the opening night attraction at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival), “Me and You and Everyone We Know” is an extremely odd bird. On the surface an observational romantic comedy charting the travails of two utterly divergent personalities making the slow trek towards love, it is actually far more than that. The picture is a fantastical, idiosyncratic and highly original foray into the thoughts and minds of an outstandingly disparate lineup of individuals both young and old, and as such is unlike anything else I’ve come across this year.

Yet, the movie is so staccato in its rhythms, so oblique in its interpersonal connections, so just-plain weird time and time again I’m not too sure even an above-average moviegoer will want to take the time to make heads or tails out of it. So much ends up feeling quirky just for the sake of being quirky, finding July’s hidden meanings within in it all bordering on the impossible. But then, the director will step into an emotion or a life experience so true, so realistic in its ironic intricacy, it is almost like the acclaimed multimedia artist held a spotlight up against humanity’s closet door. As quickly as it hits a dead-end, it just as quickly smacks a homerun, so much staggeringly emotional complexity the heart almost can’t take it.

Christine Jesperson (July) is a lonely artist who drives senior citizens from place to place to pay the bills. Unable to make interpersonal connections easily, she instead makes up vivid tales of love and woe using snapshots of individuals in exotic locales to create this fantastical form of modern art. Richard Swersey (John Hawkes) is a newly single shoe salesman trying to find the best way to maintain the love of his two young boys Peter (Miles Thompson), fourteen, and Robby (Brandon Ratcliff), seven. Richard wants to be amazed by life, astonished by the great things it can unexpectedly unleash. But when he meets the captivating Christine he panics, retreating into a shell so hard it might just take a jackhammer to crack it.

Meanwhile, Robby is having a risqué internet romance with a mysterious older woman, leading her on with allusions of kinky sexual practices that, at least to his young mind, are really nothing more than an excuse to type the word, “poop,” repeatedly. Peter’s escapades are even more extreme, two girls from his high school deciding he’s the perfect person to help them as a guinea pig for some oral exploration. Mix in some window-posted smut by one of Richard’s neighbors and a modern art museum director hiding her insecurities behind a computer screen and the pieces are set for a sexual comedy going well beyond absurd.

But, “Me and You and Everyone We Know” isn’t really a comedy, and it’s not as absurd as it leads you to believe. July’s characters are surprisingly real, run-of-the-mill working class personalities trying to make the most of the limited options available to them. They’re our next door neighbors, that kid sitting next to us in class, the person driving us to our late-night rendezvous. Still, it is weird, sometimes ridiculously so. As real as many of these people feel none of them, especially Christine, shows an ability to communicate in anything even close to resembling normal human English. They instead speak theater English, or, that mind-numbingly tiring type of talk where everyone chats in fragmented sentences appearing to last for an eternity while the other person in the conversation waits to join in until the other has completely finished. Everyone speaks in Mamet-like cadences, and while that usually seems to work in his plays and pictures it’s downright annoying this time, moments here and there akin to listening someone run their nails down a chalkboard.

Needless to say, this isn’t an actor’s movie. Not that the performers don’t give it the old college try. In fact, noted character actor Hawkes (he of notably twitchy performances in “Identity,” “Deadwood” and “The Perfect Storm”) is splendid, gently taking on Richard’s ticks and quirks and emotional detachments effortlessly. Throwing himself into the piece, Hawkes gives one of the more spellbinding tour de force performances I’ve witnessed this year, going deep into some psychologically bleak nether regions many other actors would fear to tread. And yet, the moment he smiles, the times his face loosens up and the first rays of hope shine inside him, my heart felt like it almost skipped a beat, the effortlessness behind Richard’s dreams for happiness enough to light up even the cloudiest day.

The other actors have their moments (a scene between young Ratcliff and the object of his internet infatuations is priceless), there just aren’t enough for them to do amidst all the constant eccentricity to really make much of an imprint. Only writer/director July completely fails to satisfy. Her Christine is so annoying, so unbelievably obtuse, every time she appeared onscreen I couldn’t wait for her to leave, not exactly the impression I’m guessing she was trying to make.

Her impression behind the camera, however, is just the opposite. July is an amazingly self-assured filmmaker, and even if I wasn’t completely enamored with her picture I’m pretty sure given time I could easily come to love her. This won the Caméra d'Or at Cannes for best first feature (a tie with Vimukthi Jayasundara’s “The Forsaken Land”), and it is easy to see why the jury was so high on it. It definitely fits within the surreal and slightly obtuse features the festival usually tends to adore, and even if it’s not a complete winner one would still be hard pressed to not at least admit the comedy is a true original.

I have to wonder, however, if being original is enough to warrant unwavering applause. There is so much here that doesn’t work, that is, in fact, borderline infuriating that just because it’s unabashedly unique I can’t bring myself to let it slide altogether. “Me and You and Everyone We Know” is fresh, different, and as such I’m more than happy to impart a smile. But July still isn’t a storyteller, and she sure as heck isn’t a writer of accessible dialogue, and an image here or there of staggering power or a central performance bordering on magnificence doesn’t change those facts. No, this isn’t a great movie, not by any stretch, but it is an unusual one, and if that’s what you’re looking for you could do a heck of a lot worse than this.

Film Rating: êê1/2  (out of 4)