In one of the opening scenes of Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know
a forlorn father pours lighter fluid on his hand and sets it ablaze in an attempt to amaze his children.
These kinds of idiosyncratic acts of reaching out are what fill Me and You a lovely film about connection in the digital age, and more importantly, how that affects the way we express what we feel.
The film's central conflict is the budding, awkward relationship of the recently separated Richard and Christine (July), a video performance artist who transports the elderly on the side.
Me and You expands into a number of plot strands after Richard moves with his two boys, one a teenager and the other around seven, to an apartment with some strange neighbors.
One young girl buys products for her dowry and stores them in a hope chest; Richard's coworker gladly posts his sexual fantasies on his window to two underage girls; those girls use Richard's older son as a sexual guinea pig in a scene that is surprisingly moving.
A more controversial element of the film is Robert's younger son's online relationship with a woman who gladly accepts the child's innocent and na*ve cutting and pasting of words as effective dirty talk. July pulls her greatest and funniest surprise when that story resolves.
A video performance artist making her feature film debut writing, directing and starring, July knows how to construct scenes of strange and elegant beauty that could exist as prize-winning performance pieces on their own. The fact that they might not add up to a cohesive film is almost beside the point.
From a gorgeous goldfish dance of death as it careens down a highway to the immensely creative uses of the words macaroni and poop to a heart-wrenching moment as a young girl imagines her future on her bedroom ceiling, Me and You is bursting with scenes you will never see again.
It took me two viewings to realize July's wonderfully odd debut is something special, and it's certainly not a movie for everyone. However, if you give yourself over to the strange journey July creates, you won't be able to get some scenes out of your head for days.
Me and You and Everyone We Know plays as part of the Athena Art Series today at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 4 p.m.
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Matt Burns
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Me and You and Everyone We Know plays as part of the Athena Art Series today at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 4 p.m.
