Me and You and Everyone We Know, A movie review

I realized soon after I started watching this movie that I had seen it before. But I proceeded to watch it through again, with fresh eyes.

A few days ago I watched a very remarkable movie called The Future which turned out to be written and directed by Miranda July, who also starred in, wrote and directed both of these Indie films. I was so impressed with this The Future movie that I looked up her earlier film, which is the one that is the subject of this review. This 2005 film is available for streaming on Netflix.

If all this starts to sound a bit Gertrude Stein-ish, it's the effect of spending too much time in the universe according to the very quirky and talented Ms July and attempting to write about it. She is an artist with a very particular vision. The Me and You film really breaks new ground and has stuff rarely before found in films to be seen by the public,at least in my experience, for instance children exploring their sexuality via the anonymity of the computer as well as in person. It's controversial stuff but July's approach to the material is so clearly mature and non-salacious that it has to be seen as the art that it is.

Real art always breaks new ground and walks the razor's edge, and now having seen two movies by this artist, I am starting to get a very good sense of her very individual vision of the Truth. It is refreshingly real, unsentimental, and true in a way rarely seen but often attempted especially in Indie films. Kids, especially pre-adolescents are curious about and often fascinated by sex. This combined with their inexperience and unbridled imagination makes for juicy stories. Coming-of-age is a favorite topic of filmmakers since it is a time so rich and pregnant with feeling and discovery.

Sex, love, art, communication and relationship are the themes explored here. Not just the kids exploring, but the adults experimenting with marriage, separation, divorce and reaching out for new love, new adventures and new artistic expression. There is a potential Pedophile here also to make things edgy and a bit dangerous. The way it is treated though is artistic, humorous and with compassion. But clearly this is not a film that would be recommended for or by the typical Republican household. It no doubt has been dismissed with selected denunciations and/or warnings by the narrow-minded. Lets just say its R rating is appropriate.

So it is a given that the audience for this movie is open minded, non-judgmental and sensitive and appreciative of the quirky, whimsical and artistic. If that is you, I predict you will enjoy this film as much as I did, even more so on a second viewing.

THE FUTURE, the movie reviewed

This indie film was written, directed by and stars a woman by the name of Miranda July. This was my first exposure to her work. It is quite clear that what we have here is an Artist with a very particular vision. She does not consent to the consensual reality. Instead she shows us her version, her vision.

Just like the cover, Miranda turns things upside down. Instead of seeing the Fu-ture, Miranda see it as it is displayed on the cover. The Fut-ure. This little off kilter reading is a very sweet exercise in mindfulness because it makes us take a fresh look at the ordinary. 

This film is all about an exercise in Miranda's kind of mindfulness. All an artist can do is allow you to see the world afresh, and she accomplishes this. So you can call her quirky, weird, a genius or just Way Whimsical but she is just doing what real Artists do.

It is appropriate that the setting is contemporary LA and the players are young enough to have spent a good portion of their formative years playing in the virtual reality of cyberspace. This is the setting where Miranda's vision works; its a viable possible extension of reality that we can relate to by stretching our own vision of what is possible.

The film moves slowly; it is always an exercise in meditative awareness. The most ordinary things are given respectful and sometimes crystalline attention. I found it to be most enjoyable and even though the vision was sometimes dark, it was always human and real and re-freshing. There was humor and pathos and much thoughtfulness.  

There is a certain kind of sunset that we would call a Maxfield Parrish sunset. When we say a Rubens woman everyone with some culture immediately sees a rosy voluptuous woman. It is only a small stretch to view an interior room and think it looks like a Miranda July's room. She is that good...

Recommended!