Netflix loves me. We get movies in the mail and they sit for at least two weeks before we get to them. We watch an average of three per month – that’s $6.67 per rental. Not so bright economically. I need to work on that.
Sometimes, though, we get around to watching one of the three options gathering dust on the coffee table. Last night it was Me and You and Everyone We Know.
Me and You and Everyone We Know is a strangely endearing story about some seriously fucked up people. Writer and Director Miranda July (who chose her working surname because “it is the month that most facilitates her creativity”) plays Christine, a performance artist who pays the bills by running Eldercab, a transportation service for old folks. She runs into shoe salesman Richard at the department store where he works. Richard has his own complicated life; he’s recently separated and has two young sons, Peter (14) and Robby (6), who each have the unfortunate habit of chatting online. Peter mostly chats for laughs; Robby watches his older brother and feeds lines to him to type up. One of these moments is the funniest in the movie. Renting Me and You was worth that scene alone.
The film, of course, is a lot deeper than cheap laughs. It’s disturbing on many levels and reminded me a lot of how I felt watching Todd Solondz’s Happiness, although I wasn’t quite as bothered with this film. Thankfully, July rescues the story twice from potential forays into pedophilia. Happiness doesn’t give us that favor.
One line from Me and You quite succinctly summarizes my own philosophy and hope in life:
I would love to believe in a universe where you wake up and don't have to go to work and you step outside and meet two beautiful 18-year-old sisters who are also girlfriends and are also very nice people.
Yes, indeed, my friend. Yes indeed.
