Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005)

Disturbing yet enthralling

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Me and You and Everyone We Know "functions" in a jillion ways: It's good narrative, visually exciting, bristles with powerful symbols, and invites you to explore the n-squared+ connections between those symbols.I recently mentioned to a ESL student the brilliant wordplay in "Through the Looking-Glass", where (if memory serves) the Duchess "treats" Alice to a tidy little aphorism, "Take care of the Sense, and the Sounds will take care of Themselves." This is a stupendously ingenious mutation of "Take care of the Pence, and the Pounds will take care of Themselves".Hard to believe, but I think Miranda July has created a swarming hive of chaotic Sounds that result in the Sense taking care of *itself*. If I'm right about that, then it's an Easter miracle, if I'm any judge at all.And I haven't even mentioned the production values. Suffice that they don't get in the way of the above. The right people exerted themselves to make sure the product gets mainlined right into the ol' vein.Check it out! ))<>((, y'all!

Every now and then there are some films that make you sit up a little straighter and rewind at certain points, hardly believing your own ears. Me and You and Everyone We Know is one of those, a twisted, bizarre, romantic comedy and barely deserving of that latter label. It speaks the same playful language of whimsy that many similar indie flicks aspire to, and is shot with the same formal sparseness. But its characters, which are a reflection of Miranda July's overall views on the nature of communication and life, push past those generic markers. There is one scene of an ordinary conversation walking the street which many have highlighted, seeming plucked straight out of Richard Linklater's Before Trilogy, but beyond that the dialogue spills out from the character's mouths with little thought of inhibition. Yes, this could be initially perceived as overly stylised or stilted. Some might never be able to get past it. Yet it is undeniably refreshing to have a screenwriter not be shackled by age-old expectations of how a person should and must act in the company of others (strangers, usually in this case). Consider the early scene where July's filmic alter ego Christine is driving along with a man (who we later learn is a client, not a relative, of her taxi service for the elderly) and spot a goldfish and bag perching perilously on the roof of an open car. We have barely any time to assess the situation (or the goldfish's odds) before Christine immediately begins an impromptu postmortem, honouring the fish's brief but eventful life. Such a moment is almost impossible to capture sincerely, right down to the morbid tones of her eulogy, the droning soundtrack and the last fatal closeup, disappearing in a blur. You could imagine it as a bit on a sketch show, or the same overwrought scenario being played for cheap laughs in a comedy. But July manages to pull off the unthinkable, honing in on a very precise note of acute sensitivity and distress that is strangely touching. We're not laughing at her, but rather giggling at the absurdity of the situation, and how it brings out a flood of unexpected empathy. The rest of the film's territory has been covered before by Todd Solondz in various degrees of innocence and grotesqueness, although July reaches further. All around the film's vignettes are little triumphs of social faux pax, and the most delightful thing of all is how the film doesn't attempt to apologise for its content. Taken at face value, some of the interactions are icky. But that assumes that July is attempting to scrub away stigmas - she isn't. Rather, she's getting behind the back of these poor sods. They live in a Solondz movie, they walk straight out of a chirpier version of Mike Leigh's Bleak Moments. But rather than be suffocated by it, rather than be resigned to living out the rest of their lives like sad sacks, they go about their days with a wide-eyed curiosity that tells us they haven't been resigned to giving up. They still see the magic in the ordinary. It's as if no one has told them what kind of movie this is, and what they are and aren't allowed to do. Or how to act a certain way based on their past. No one told July either. It's brave of her to debut with this. The film isn't tonally inconsistent - just fighting expectations. Look, it's not perfect. The soundtrack gets a little old. The sound mixing is a bit wonky, meaning much of the dialogue goes straight to your ears and overpowers the rest of the ambient sound. And every now and again you might get the feeling that July uses the film as an extension of her own art, where it gets overly personal; the little jabs at the art community, and the overall impression of Christine. There's no real reason she has to be a performance artist, other than helping to set the mood of the opening. And the characterisations can be flimsy. The most egregious fault is the cold rejection from Richard in the car, just after the sidewalk scene. It is the utter antithesis of that final moment of brilliantly realised magical realism, where the entire universe sits in the palm of a child's imagination.

I only wish I could have given it less than one star. The writing, dialog, and acting were stiff and wooden and unbelievable. Looking past that, it was pathetic. I can't believe I spent 90 minutes on this but I guess I was hoping something would happen to redeem it. It didn't. Several of the actors need speech therapy to correct their sibilant "S". Macaroni? Really? Ellen Geer might have been the only believable actor in the movie. There were a couple of good lines in the movie, such as when the dad took off his bandage and invited the sons to go with him to take his hand for a walk. But I was so overwhelmed by the stiffness of everything else I couldn't quite appreciate what little humor there was. The sexuality of the children was especially unbelievable. I understand that children are curious but I just can't imagine in my wildest dreams anything even remotely akin to what happened in this movie. Sorry, maybe I just don't have any imagination or sense of whimsy. Oh well.

This was the worst movie I have ever seen. It is a movie for pedophiles and was so disturbing. I cannot believe that anyone actually spent money to make this piece of garbage. Did anyone who was involved with this movie have any sense of decency? There were a few good concepts in the movie, but they were completely overshadowed by the disturbing images/sexualization of children. If you find those things disturbing you should not watch this movie. I did like the scene with the goldfish and the one with the shoes (me and you), but like I said those moments were forgotten. Those moments might have made a better short than a whole movie. I am just so disturbed by the whole thing, I cannot believe that all of these people are not embarrassed for their parts in this.