Me and You and Everyone We Know

I sincerely hope...no I pray that Miranda July never gets a big budget to play with, because it's so wonderful to see what someone can do with a tiny budget and actors all of whom but one are unknowns.

Miranda wrote, directed, and plays one of the leads in this movie which is about two people crossing the void of fear and hesitation to establish human contact. It's not about two people whose underwear is getting moist as they think about each other. It's about people who simply need someone who wants to be with them.

The movie introduces us to a female performance artist (Miranda) who's doing a piece on love and relationships and to a disheveled young man (John Hawkes, most recently of the Deadwood TV series) whose marriage is coming apart, leaving him with joint custody of two boys, one about five and one about fifteen.

In an irrational act to get the boys' attention, he burns his hand as he had seen someone else do, but he wrongly uses lighter fluid which burns hotter and is more difficult to put out than alcohol, so he really burns his hand. This plays no particular role in the movie except to show his emotional state and to stimulate a little dialog.

Miranda drives an Elder Cab which takes old people out to do shopping and run chores. John works as a shoe salesman in a mall department store. They meet when Miranda takes one of her rides (Hector Elias) shoe shopping. When he takes the time to ask her about her feet and she complains about her shoes and he tells her she deserves better (probably just as a sales line), she is somehow smitten by him and more or less initiates a conversation while he's walking to his car (which inexplicably seems to be parked well away from the mall, as is hers, but let's not think about that). At first he reciprocates her flirtation but when she climbs into his car asking for a ride to hers, he panics at her forwardness and asks her to get out of his car.

Meanwhile, we have some subplots, quirky and otherwise.

In the otherwise category is the love story between the elderly man she drove to buy shoes and his girlfriend who seems to be seriously ill with some sort of respiratory disorder (she breathes oxygen through some sort of respirator).

More interesting are some subplots surrounding his two boys. The 15 year old chats online and lets his little brother (who, naturally, doesn't know half what's going on) sit in. Eventually, the young boy unwittingly ends up doing some pretty randy chatting (without knowing it) with an anonymous adult identified later.

Meanwhile, two neighborhood girls (17-18ish) are exploring their own sexuality and use the older boy to settle their dispute as to which gives better fellatio (though it would appear neither one of them has actually done it before).

We are introduced to a neighbor girl who's a bit more age-appropriate for the older son, but she's a bit weird, since she's assembling a hope chest which already contains towel sets, a shower curtain, kitchen appliances, etc.

One last subplot involves Miranda trying to get a tape of her performance work heard at a local museum of contemporary art. There is a funny scene where she and the Director end up on an elevator together and Miranda hands a tape of her work to the Director, who refuses to take it, instead handing her a card and telling her to send it to that address. Miranda looks at the card and queries "but that address is right here?" "I know the Director responds, but it's less likely to get lost that way." We're also treated to a scene of the Director who is a charicature of all of those pretentious art people that we all suspect don't know their ass from a hole in the ground, reviewing art submissions and commenting on them. At one point, she looks at something and says, "This is so real. It looks just like a hamburger wrapper" and the artist tells her, "It is a hamburger wrapper. I always include some real things in my shows."

Are you getting some idea that this movie is quirky? It is...but I didn't really find it annoying. In fact, I can safely say that I enjoyed every minute of it, despite the fact that John Hawkes and the actress playing little girl next door are the only characters (even including Miranda) whose acting is really at a professional level. And the cinematography isn't even at a Nickelodeon level. This movie has so many other little virtues in terms of the ideas and sincerity behind the writing that I forgive all that stuff. And even though Miranda July has a way to go before she becomes a really good actress, she's just charming and endearing enough to pull it off here.