Me and You and Everyone We Know

I’ll admit it: I read movie critics’ reviews to decide whether to watch movies, especially A. O. Scott of the New York Times. So when he, along with seemingly every critic with a word processor, fell in love with Miranda July’s first feature film, Me and You and Everyone We Know, I was ready to like it. In fact, I was eager to like it – so much so that I sat through the entire movie struggling to figure out what, exactly, it was that I was supposed to like.

Miranda July, who wrote, directed, and starred in the film, is first and foremost a performance artist, and to a large degree her debut film valiantly and stubbornly refuses to comply with the conventions of feature films, instead relying on her own background to create the world of film. This creates some very magical moments, all underscored by Mike Andrews’ beautifully simple and whimsical soundtrack. Certain scenes are more like poems than scenes in a movie: a walk down a street becomes a metaphor for a couple’s relationship, a ten year old girl uses her bedroom ceiling as the blank page to blueprint her future kitchen, and a man tries to hide a framed print of a bird – a relic of his unhappy past – by wedging it into a tree.

Unfortunately, these moments do not come together with the charm that they individually suggest. While I am all for films creating worlds and storytelling paces that are not “realistic,” films (and, indeed, all art) requires some real connection between the audience and the characters or plot. The loose story noncommittally wanders between small plots involving an amateur performance artist, a shoe salesman, and their family and friends, but we never really get to see any story long enough to really understand it. Worse still, we cannot care about characters so utterly removed from humanity that they have none of the same worries and fears as normal human beings. In the world of Me and You and Everyone We Know, people do not worry about conversations with strangers or being too forward when first meeting someone. They do not worry about a child who obsessively buys kitchen and home supplies for her hope chest. They do not worry about the fact that sexually explicit messages taped to a window facing a bus stop might be read by more than the two teenage girls for whom the messages are intended. Somehow, in this world, everyone is unconcerned for the safety and health of a man who pours lighter fluid on his hand and ignites it in front of his sons. Nor does anyone seems to notice or be disturbed by a seven year old boy who wanders into an online chat room and ends up having multiple conversations I will not describe here. Instead, all of these incidents are supposed to be somehow endearing and indicative of inherent worth.

Instead of exploring her characters, Ms. July relies on the crutch that too many modern artists lean on: being different without deciding why it matters to be different. Instead, her work seems to proclaim that just being different makes it Important. Most critics seem to have fallen victim to this ploy, falling in love with this movie for no other reason than the fact that Ms. July uses a non-linear plot and doesn’t focus on character or plot or, indeed, much of anything. After all the critical attention this tactic acquired, a conscientious viewer might, like me, try to like the film because it claims to be Artistically Important.

And yet, I could never focus on the artistic techniques and merits of the film because I was too distracted by the fact that I didn’t care at all about the movie or the people it portrayed. Who cares if a film is artistically different if it doesn’t use those qualities to convey something more powerful: a message, a story, or maybe even a character’s revelation or two? The same critics who pan a blockbuster action film for not developing plot or character even if that film created new innovations in pyrotechnics or computer animation should have turned in a similar complaint for this film: all technique, but for no reason.

Me and You and Everyone We Know feels more like something you should be watching as an installation at your local museum, sitting on a large hard bench and pondering not only the film but the paint splotch helpfully named “Untitled No. 4” next to it. It is a noble idea to remind us not to pigeonhole the medium of film any more than we do the medium of paint or print. However, without any other purpose that breaking filmic conventions, this film ends up being more something the critics tell you you’re supposed to appreciate than something you can actually enjoy.

1 out of 4 stars (do I have to give it any stars?)