ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW

I once worked as a barista at the coffee cart in front of a major department store for a couple years. The only thing that made it tolerable would be to prattle on to my regular customers, and to crack jokes and goof off with my co-workers.

Well, one day we got a new young manager, a humorless corporate-ladder climber. I think I rambled on about things, life, and whatnot, as I usually do, only to suddenly notice that she was looking at me stone-faced. There was a moment of silence, and she smiled one of those not-really-a-smile-at-all grimaces, and said, "You know what? You're weird." I was thrown. I told my co-workers about the comment later, and we chortled about it, congratulating ourselves at the idea that if our boss was "normal," well then thank god we were the weirdos.

The characters in Miranda July's lovely feature debut Me and You and Everyone We Know is full of weirdos like myself and my collection of friends that I've collected over the years. Call them quirky or off-kilter, but then ask yourself, "Is anyone really normal?"

A dad (John Hawkes) lights his hand on fire in a desperate attempt to impress his kids when his wife (their mom) is packing up to leave him. A woman (Miranda July) talks into a recorder, narrating made-up monologues involving characters that she studies in photographs. A 6-year-old boy (the scene-stealer Brandon Ratcliff) uses the computer skills his brother showed him to chat online with a mystery woman with a bit of a kink. A 10-year old girl (Carlie Westerman) solemnly collects household things to put in her hope chest for when she gets married. Two teenage girls taunt and encourage an adult man to talk dirty to them.

Me and You doesn't really have much of a plot to guide it. These not-perfect folks are just sort of stumbling through everyday life like the rest of us. They loosely interact and cross plots, but even the minor characters are well-developed enough to get a memorable scene or two. Even if there is at times a hint of melancholy throughout the film (everyone is kind of struggling to connect with each other), there are many moments that are laugh-out-loud funny. I won't tell you the funniest scene of the film, but lets just say, the audience was screaming with surprise and laughter at what the film gets away with. In the wrong hands, some of the stuff in the film could come across as kind of, well, pervy, but Miranda July is so affectionate towards her characters that the film is somehow never crass.

The Seattle International Film Festival scored Me and You and Everyone We Know straight from the Cannes Film Festival, and showed the film Opening Night. Miranda July abruptly left SIFF right after, cancelling a seminar, because it turned out she was flying back to Cannes to accept the Camera d'Or prize for best first feature. Heck, I think it is an award well-deserved. Miranda July is a fresh and insightful voice in filmmaking, and I'd love to see more.