Sunday, August 07, 2005
Me, You and Everyone We Know (2005)
Director: Miranda Joy
See January for: ^Closer; ^The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou;
^Finding Neverland; ^The Aviator
See February for: ^Million Dollar Baby; ^Male and Female;
^Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; ^Love; ^Sunrise; ^Ray
See March for: ^Being Julia; ^Millions
See April for: ^Melinda and Melinda
See May for: ^ Look At Me ^Enron: The Smartest Guys In the Room ^Chinatown; ^ Born Into Brothels
See June for: ^Cote d’Azur ^5X2 ^Sabah ^Inlaws and Outlaws ^Peach Girl ^2046
See July for: ^Pick-up ^Batman Begins ^Mad Hot Ballroom ^Heights ^My Summer of Love
*Warning the following analysis contains a discussion of the entire film – including the ending.
Wow, another summer film of extremely fine quality and intellect, and in this particular case, significant artistry. In fact this is the first film in a long time I would label as significant, as breaking new ground. And it exists in summer! Perhaps distributors are realizing there is an audience hungry to escape the explosions, superheroes and general adolescence that is the summer movie. (Or perhaps I have over-looked these gems in years past.) In any case Me You and Everyone We Know is doing something different, it is not easily compared to other films I have seen (aside from a strange likeness in quality to Napoleon Dynamite), and it has smuggled some art into its storytelling.
Me You and Everyone We Know is a film analyzing the condition of contemporary relationships. Director Miranda Joy explores our dysfunction, our alienation and our persistent (and often failed) struggle to connect to others.
Me You and Everyone We Know is literary film-making, meaning Joy tells her story with the density and subtlety usually found only in a novel. No, I imagine Me You and Everyone We Know as a series of short stories composed around a theme: individuals trying and failing to connect. Joy then extracted the most poignant morsels from these stories, filmed them and edited them together in her loosely connected series of narratives. Joy’s characters range in age from 5 to 15, from middle age through the end of life, and they are all victims in her humorous dystopia. In particular Joy’s depiction of children is daring, showing what happens when adults cannot communicate with their kids, model only dysfunction, and allow mass media to fill in the gaps.
The two main child characters, Peter and Robby, are bi-racial boys of recently separated parents. They live part time with mom in their old home, and with dad in a tiny, messy apartment. Peter and Robby, like the other child characters, move through their lives emotionally shut down. They frequently communication anonymously in chat-rooms with strangers but cannot engage their dad’s conversations. In the chat-room the conversations inevitably turn to sex. But even this communication is emotionless, conducted without humor, arousal or even curiosity; rather it is an escape: an escape from boredom; an escape from trying to talk with their dad; an escape from having to feel.
Joy’s 2 female adolescent characters, Heather and Rebecca, share the Peter and Robby's preoccupation with yet detachment from sex. They have learned already at 15 that their sexuality contains power. They experiment with this power flirting with Robby’s unattractive 30-something neighbor (who is pathetic enough to encourage their sex talk). Joy’s indictment is against mass media’s influence on young girls. Countless times these girls have absorbed images of women using sex to gain power, to express identity or merely to get attention. Sex has become superficial – virtual - meaningless. Nowhere is this clearer than in the scene where the girls, wondering who would give better oral sex, enlist Robby to judge. He is to lie with eyes closed while each tries their skills. This is the film’s most startling scene, not so much because of the adolescent sex, but because all 3 children engage in it without emotion, without attraction, without excitement. It is not hormone driven adolescents sex, it is a clinical, objective process and it is clear they do not understand the significance of what they are doing, having no idea sex has a purpose in an intimate relationship.
If the Heather and Rebecca have been corrupted by MTV and Sex and the City, than Sylvie has been corrupted by the Brady Bunch and Martha Stewart. Sylvie, a precocious 8-year-old girl, has collected a ‘hope-chest’ of appliances, bedding, and towels, props in her intricately imaged fantasy home life. In one stirring scene Sylvie takes Robbie through a detailed description of her imaged perfect future home. Sylvie merely describes (what was once?) mundane family, ending with: “And I’ll tell my daughter how special and loved she is". An extended pan-out shot captures the children drinking in the lovely fantasy like a tonic. Ironically these children, bored by sex, are emotionally overwhelmed imagining sitting in the kitchen talking with a loving mother.
The central adult character, Christine, is the film’s anti-hero, a fresh take on the Woody Allen persona from his 1970s films. She is dorky and earnest in her pursuit of love, and genuine and intimately honest in her art: mass media productions depicting people trying to connect. (The art within the art of Me You and Everyone We Know.)
And there is as much to say about the various adult plot lines - but I will leave it.
Should you see it? Yes, to reward Miranda Joy for doing something new and for doing it well.
See January for: ^Closer; ^The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou;
^Finding Neverland; ^The Aviator
See February for: ^Million Dollar Baby; ^Male and Female;
^Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; ^Love; ^Sunrise; ^Ray
See March for: ^Being Julia; ^Millions
See April for: ^Melinda and Melinda
See May for: ^ Look At Me ^Enron: The Smartest Guys In the Room ^Chinatown; ^ Born Into Brothels
See June for: ^Cote d’Azur ^5X2 ^Sabah ^Inlaws and Outlaws ^Peach Girl ^2046
See July for: ^Pick-up ^Batman Begins ^Mad Hot Ballroom ^Heights ^My Summer of Love
*Warning the following analysis contains a discussion of the entire film – including the ending.
Wow, another summer film of extremely fine quality and intellect, and in this particular case, significant artistry. In fact this is the first film in a long time I would label as significant, as breaking new ground. And it exists in summer! Perhaps distributors are realizing there is an audience hungry to escape the explosions, superheroes and general adolescence that is the summer movie. (Or perhaps I have over-looked these gems in years past.) In any case Me You and Everyone We Know is doing something different, it is not easily compared to other films I have seen (aside from a strange likeness in quality to Napoleon Dynamite), and it has smuggled some art into its storytelling.
Me You and Everyone We Know is a film analyzing the condition of contemporary relationships. Director Miranda Joy explores our dysfunction, our alienation and our persistent (and often failed) struggle to connect to others.
Me You and Everyone We Know is literary film-making, meaning Joy tells her story with the density and subtlety usually found only in a novel. No, I imagine Me You and Everyone We Know as a series of short stories composed around a theme: individuals trying and failing to connect. Joy then extracted the most poignant morsels from these stories, filmed them and edited them together in her loosely connected series of narratives. Joy’s characters range in age from 5 to 15, from middle age through the end of life, and they are all victims in her humorous dystopia. In particular Joy’s depiction of children is daring, showing what happens when adults cannot communicate with their kids, model only dysfunction, and allow mass media to fill in the gaps.
The two main child characters, Peter and Robby, are bi-racial boys of recently separated parents. They live part time with mom in their old home, and with dad in a tiny, messy apartment. Peter and Robby, like the other child characters, move through their lives emotionally shut down. They frequently communication anonymously in chat-rooms with strangers but cannot engage their dad’s conversations. In the chat-room the conversations inevitably turn to sex. But even this communication is emotionless, conducted without humor, arousal or even curiosity; rather it is an escape: an escape from boredom; an escape from trying to talk with their dad; an escape from having to feel.
Joy’s 2 female adolescent characters, Heather and Rebecca, share the Peter and Robby's preoccupation with yet detachment from sex. They have learned already at 15 that their sexuality contains power. They experiment with this power flirting with Robby’s unattractive 30-something neighbor (who is pathetic enough to encourage their sex talk). Joy’s indictment is against mass media’s influence on young girls. Countless times these girls have absorbed images of women using sex to gain power, to express identity or merely to get attention. Sex has become superficial – virtual - meaningless. Nowhere is this clearer than in the scene where the girls, wondering who would give better oral sex, enlist Robby to judge. He is to lie with eyes closed while each tries their skills. This is the film’s most startling scene, not so much because of the adolescent sex, but because all 3 children engage in it without emotion, without attraction, without excitement. It is not hormone driven adolescents sex, it is a clinical, objective process and it is clear they do not understand the significance of what they are doing, having no idea sex has a purpose in an intimate relationship.
If the Heather and Rebecca have been corrupted by MTV and Sex and the City, than Sylvie has been corrupted by the Brady Bunch and Martha Stewart. Sylvie, a precocious 8-year-old girl, has collected a ‘hope-chest’ of appliances, bedding, and towels, props in her intricately imaged fantasy home life. In one stirring scene Sylvie takes Robbie through a detailed description of her imaged perfect future home. Sylvie merely describes (what was once?) mundane family, ending with: “And I’ll tell my daughter how special and loved she is". An extended pan-out shot captures the children drinking in the lovely fantasy like a tonic. Ironically these children, bored by sex, are emotionally overwhelmed imagining sitting in the kitchen talking with a loving mother.
The central adult character, Christine, is the film’s anti-hero, a fresh take on the Woody Allen persona from his 1970s films. She is dorky and earnest in her pursuit of love, and genuine and intimately honest in her art: mass media productions depicting people trying to connect. (The art within the art of Me You and Everyone We Know.)
And there is as much to say about the various adult plot lines - but I will leave it.
Should you see it? Yes, to reward Miranda Joy for doing something new and for doing it well.
