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| PARK CITY , Utah -- It happened like this. I was sitting in a movie that wasn't working for me. I walked out of the screening, thinking to take the shuttle bus to Prospector Square. But the next bus was going to the Yarrow, and so, what the hell, I went to the Yarrow. There were two press screenings at the same time. A San Diego State film student in the lobby said he heard good things about "Me and You and Everyone We Know." And that is how I saw the best film I've seen this year at Sundance. Just like that. The movie was written and directed by Miranda July, the well-known performance artist, who developed it at the Sundance summer workshop. She stars as Christine, a would-be artist and full-time Elder Cab driver. She falls in love at first sight with a shoe salesman named Richard (John Hawkes), who is separated from his wife and helping to raise his two sons. It also involves two sexually curious teenage girls, a solemn neighbor girl, a dirty old man, some art curators, and me and you. |
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John Hawkes (Richard) and Miranda July (Christine) in a scene from ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW directed by Miranda July |
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| We are involved because the movie,
with perfect control of tone and an insidiously haunting sound track,
weaves us into its world. I have rarely felt so contained by a film.
"Me and You and Everyone We Know" is delicate, tender, poetic,
and yet so daring in some of its scenes that you sit in uncertain suspense,
wondering if July can get away with her audacity, which ventures to
the edge of what mainstream audiences find acceptable. She can. She
knows exactly what she's doing. |
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Like David Gordon Green, Miranda July
writes dialog that you have never heard anybody say before, and yet
you believe these characters would say it. I will not describe the plot,
partly because the plot is not the point: It is simply the path these
enormously sympathetic but lonely and strange characters follow on their
way to tomorrow. |
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Let me tell you about one scene. After Christine first sees Richard the shoe salesman, they talk briefly and something happens between them. She knows it. He knows it, but doesn't want to deal with it, because he is going through a divorce and has two boys to raise and doesn't need romance just at this time. He leaves the store to walk to his car. She catches up with him. They walk together. Playing with words, they pretend that this walk is their lifetime. So when they get to Leland Street, that will be halfway through their lives. At Tyrone Street, she has to turn one way, and he the other. |
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John Hawkes (Richard) in a scene from ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW |
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"But I'm thinking like Tyrone is our whole lives," she says. If they don't separate at that corner, they could walk on together forever. Their walk down the sidewalk is one of the most perfectly written and conceptualized scenes I have ever seen.
Directed by Miranda July. Distributed by IFC Films. Print courtesy IFC Films. |
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Miranda July director of ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW
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