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!

Miranda July made this movie. She also stars in it, she might be the main character I think, although there is a lot of main characters. This movie is about me, you, and everyone we know. Is it a quirky movie? Yes, it certainly contains the typical "quirky indie movie" flare, but it doesn't dwell on that like other indie movies. There are things about it that feel like a direct reaction against the stereotype of an indie movie. There's disgusting and disturbing sexual content, satire of modern art, characters that are uncomfortably strange and likely mentally challenged, but are still highly sympathetic, and no real overall story...wait stop. It actually does have an overall story or, more appropriately, it has multiple stories that all connect in a surprisingly unique fashion. Many movies are like this sort of, many movies have a big cast of oddball characters that are all interrelated in their own way and it all culminates together in the end and whatever. But this movie does that whole trend a bit differently. A lot of the characters don't really have too much of a conclusion, they just fade (and run) away, and the final image of the film shows that time will still go on. All of these people will still live out their sad, warm, humorous, pathetic, lovable lives until their time is up and another takes their place. What exactly am I trying to say? That's a good question. My thoughts on this film are kind of scattered and confused, just like the film itself. Parts of it felt really pretentious, but they also contained a type of honesty that isn't often seen in "pretentious" indie movies. July is a filmmaker with a clear vision...a vision that she just wants to express. She doesn't come across as an intentionally hipster-like artist who tries way to hard. Instead, she comes across as a person who is extremely genuine, who wants to express (using visuals and words) how she sees and feels about the world. And I respect her and this film for that, even if I didn't really like ALL of it, the overarching impression it gave me was really powerful. Some of the visuals here are stuck in my mind forever, and don't mind that at all. There is dialogue in the film that is laugh out loud funny, there are moments of tragedy that touched me despite being really mild when one stops to think about them. It's a movie to get you feeling and thinking, it's a movie that both tries too hard and not enough, making it feel just right. It is the pinnacle of imperfection, but it is also too sweet and beautiful and hilarious to dismiss as a failed experiment. It is something "else" entirely, totally removed from what you're probably used to seeing, something that anyone with an open mind must see.

Christine Jesperson (Miranda July) is a video artist desperate to get her work in Nancy Herrington (Tracy Wright)'s show. Richard Swersey (John Hawkes) is a recently separated shoe salesman with sons Peter and Robby. One day, Christine is driving her "Eldercab" to take Michael to buy shoes and Richard talks her into buying a pair herself. They begin a long hesitant romance. Meanwhile everybody they know is searching for connections in odd ways. Peter becomes entangled in Heather and Rebecca's sexual curiosity with Richard's boss Andrew. Robby gets into an internet sexual liaison with an unknown figure who turns out to be someone they know. Sylvie with her hope chest is infatuated with Peter.The two girls are the most shocking. Robby is the scariest. Peter and Sylvie are the most touching. With all these kids dealing with these adult situations, the leads' romance actually seems tame by comparison. It's odd that the central characters don't measure up to their costars but that's the case here. It's quirky and offbeat but I wouldn't call it charming. The movie threatens to go dark with the kiddie material but it backs off before it goes overboard. Miranda July and John Hawkes are doing some interesting acting. They are endearing in their own sections.

The first time I had heard of Miranda July was when I saw the trailer for her most recent film, The Future. I saw the trailer and thought: hmm, this filmmaker sure has a strange sense of storytelling. When I went on IMDb and found a more early film of hers, Me and You and Everyone we Know, I decided to take a chance and told myself: go ahead, be brave, watch the movie from the weirdo artist with a surname that happens to be the name of a summer month. Turns out, my perplexity was effortlessly brushed away by hooking myself into this film: Miranda July's quirky protagonist (a narrator as well as one of the main characters) was so refreshingly real, I wasn't sure if July was playing herself or this apparently fictional heroine. The dialogue is all authentic and unapologetic: the scene between John Hawkes' character, Richard (a sweet-natured and honest performance made all the more impressive when I realized, thirty minutes into the film, that this was the same man who played the chilling cult leader Patrick in Martha Marcy May Marlene)and Miranda July's Christine on the sidewalk on the way home from work is beautifully written and had such a poetry present, it was one of my favourite scenes in the whole film. Another appreciative aspect of this film is that July delivers a love story that makes you forget its a love story: so interwoven is Richard's relationship with his boys and Christine's attempts at impressing curators with her original and unorthodox performance art as well as the story of a wonderfully three dimensional neighbour with a fetish for teenage girls while the girls themselves are so ridiculously riddled with hormones and experimentation with their sexuality, it comes off more like the real deal rather than a forced depiction of youth struggling to come into themselves. These stories are all intertwined into a perspective of connection, of how we connect with one another, be it in person or over cyberspace. It allows the audience to ask the greater question: How lonely are we in a world designed to connect us but at the same time manages to isolate us as well? It's a lovely theme that July executes without fault. When this film ended, it left me with a feeling of wonder and some remaining perplexity. It wasn't until I thought about it later why this perplexity had resurrected itself: I didn't watch a movie. I watched the lives of people who could easily be the people I sit next to on the bus with or are neighbours with. This wasn't just entertainment: It was a depiction that hit close to the bone while at the same time managing to inspire humour and, visually speaking, beauty. I give it an A+ and the highest recommendation. Well done, Miranda July: I took a chance and this expert storyteller did not disappoint.