When I was a sophomore in college I became involved with an engineering major. A few weeks after we started going out she had to go out west for an internship, so we decided to continue the relationship as best we could, resulting in large telephone bills and not very much sleep for either of us. She said she would try to fly back when she could, but the internship became very work-intensive, so we were apart for several months. Finally, I broke up with her because, simply put, we had run out of things to talk about. It wasn’t that I didn’t like her anymore, but because talking had become the central means by which our relationship was continued, “nothing left to say” meant the end.

There are no long-distance relationships in Miranda July’s ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, but judging by what July has to say in the film I’m guessing she might have some thoughts on this topic as well. ME AND YOU… is a film with an ambitious and relevant subject- namely, the difficulty of truly connecting with other people in a world where communication has becoming highly mediated and regimented.

From a young age we begin to compartmentalize the others in our lives based on our relationship to them- family, neighbors, friends, teachers, and so on. There are several reasons for this, one major reason being that associating people with situations makes it becomes easier for children to determine the proper decorum for that situation- for example, one behaves differently with family than with friends. Of course, such black-and-white thinking sometimes doesn’t match up with the messiness of everyday life- think back to the first time you saw a teacher away from school. It can be awkward (and not just for a child) to try to communicate with a person who has been removed from the context with which one associates them. In some cases, particularly when there’s an age difference involves, society regiments what may or may not be appropriate forms of interaction.

Another issue facing people today is the use of technology to supplement interaction. There are more forms of communication today than ever before- to name three examples, telephones, e-Mail, and instant messaging can connect people from all over the world. However, to what extent is it possible to truly connect with others when there’s hundreds or even thousands of miles between us? Can anything truly replace proximity, the ability to see, touch, and even smell the other person? I sometimes wonder how much longer I would have dated the girl from my ill-fated long distance relationship if she could have returned home sooner, turning talking into but one option for communicating, rather than the only one.

Well, I’ve lectured long enough. You’re here to read a movie review, not a sociology paper. But the central theme of ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW is what I’ve been discussing all along. All of the relationships in the film- be they professional, friendly, neighborly, or familial- are impeded by various types of regimenting. Take Christine (played by the director, who has an Emily Watson-ish quality) and Richard (nicely played by John Hawkes). They first meet in the shoe store where Richard works, and one day after his shift is over they leave the store at the same time and strike up a conversation while they walk to their respective cars. The conversation is stimulating (they liken the time they spend walking together to the duration of a love affair), and in a more formulaic movie this would be the beginning of a romance. However, it’s not so easy in the film (and I daresay in real life), and when Christine tries to pursue the conversation further, Richard becomes uncomfortable. To him, she’s still just a woman he met at the store and who he chatted with to pass the time, and in his mind she has exceeded these boundaries.

It doesn’t help matters that Richard has recently separated from his wife for unspecified reasons, which doesn’t make him a prime candidate to give himself freely to another at this point in time. He lives with his sons, teenaged Peter (deadpan Miles Thompson) and Robby (Brandon Ratcliff, priceless), who seems to be about seven or eight. Both boys regard their father with weary curiosity, particularly after a misguided stunt in which Richard set his hand on fire with lighter fluid (“I meant to use rubbing alcohol,” he observes as he eyes the burned flesh). The boys spend much of their time in online sex chat rooms, and Robby begins chatting regularly with a woman about something which I’ll refer to as “back and forth.” These chat sessions are quite funny, not least for remaining confined to the scope of what a primary-schooler might imagine “dirty” behavior to be.

Meanwhile, Christine has a day job as a driver for the elderly. Her usual fare is Michael (Hector Elias), who has embarked on a relationship with a woman in a rest home (it’s telling that in July’s world the relationship that seems happiest is between two elderly people). When she’s not driving, she spends time at home creating video art using still photography and voiceover. In the film’s opening scene we see two people sitting on a beach, then the camera pulls back to reveal that it’s a photo and that Christine is providing both the voices.

There are other people in the film’s world as well. One of Richard’s neighbors has a daughter named Sylvie (Callie Westerman), a precocious girl who has embarked on a project to create a hope chest for her eventual marriage (pointing out a sale-priced kitchen appliance to a clerk, she asks “is that classic, or will it go out of style in the next twenty years?”). The hope chest is her little secret, and although she shows it to Peter, she denies knowing anything about it when he mentions it later in front of her friends. There is also Nancy (Tracy Wright) a gallery owner to whom Christine tries to give her video art, only to be told to mail it in instead. Finally, there’s Richard’s coworker Andrew (Brad William Henke), who posts dirty messages on his front window for Heather and Rebecca (Natasha Slayton and Najarra Townsend), two local high schoolers who flirt with him. Of course, he can’t actually do anything about it, due to potential legal reasons as well as his own anxiety.

While each of the relationships in the film remains true to the director’s theme, not all of them work equally well. I could have done without the scenes involving Nancy the art curator, who is such a caricatured shrew of a woman that I can only assume that July, a visual artist directing her first narrative feature, was trying to score satirical points against a type with which she’s familiar. When viewing Christine’s video with her assistant, they have the following dialogue exchange:

“Haven’t we already shown a local artist this year?”
“Yes, and besides, she’s not black.”
“No, but she’s a woman.”

This scene, and others involving her character, struck me as being half-baked attempts at parodying the “diversity-friendly” art world, and made me long for the much cleverer art-satire scenes in Terry Zwigoff’s GHOST WORLD.

On the other end of the spectrum is perhaps the most fascinating scene in the film, in which Heather and Rebecca pay a surprise visit to Peter. Following a remark by Andrew, the girls challenge each other to see who is better at, um, administering oral pleasure. They settle on Peter, a classmate of theirs, and after he tells Robby to go outside, the girls demand that he provide “a CD player, some wet and dry towels, and some candy or cookies.” The film provides no hint as to whether Peter or either of the girls has ever had sex in the past, but given the way the scene plays out (Peter has to lie on the bed, cover his face with a pillow, and is not permitted to touch either girl) he may as well be taking the Pepsi Challenge. This scene is fascinating because of its oddness, and the fact that July elides the sexuality of the moment by positioning it as somewhere between an experiment and a friendly rivalry, with Peter as a passive participant in it all. In other words, it’s hardly even about sex for the girls.

In spite of its flaws- an obvious one being that the quirkiness of the writing gets distracting in spots- ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW is a fascinating work, and Miranda July is a director to watch in the future. Before this film, I was only familiar with her as the co-screenwriter of Wayne Wang’s CENTER OF THE WORLD, which tells the story of an arranged relationship between an exotic dancer and a rich client. Both films have the theme of regimented relationships in common, but ME AND YOU… expands the theme to include virtually everyone onscreen. July seems to be saying that in our quest to broaden the possibilities of communication, it has become that much harder to truly connect with others around us. To her credit, she doesn’t attempt to offer remedies to the problem at large- it’s too widespread for blanket solutions- but in this film there’s still some hope that we might learn to transcend the problems, one at a time, if only we care enough to make the effort.

Recommended:
Yes