Product Description

Award-winning and critically acclaimed, Me You and Everyone We Know, is a poetic and penetrating look at how everyday people struggle to connect with one another in an isolating modern world. Christine Jesperson (writer/director Miranda July) is a struggling artist and cab driver who uses her talents and imagination to draw her dreams and objects of desire. One such object is Richard Swersey (John Hawkes, TV's "Deadwood"), a newly-single father of two boys who is hoping for amazing things, yet panics upon meeting the captivating Christine. But in a world where the mundane is transcendent and people seek meaningful connections despite the risk, anything magical can happen - and well - happen.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11218 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-10-11
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 91 minutes

Amazon.com
One of the most critically acclaimed films of 2005, Me and You and Everyone We Know is also one of the most original feature debuts you're ever likely to see. Winner of the Camera d'or Award for best first film at the Cannes Film Festival, it's an altogether charming display of talent for writer, director, and costar Miranda July, a performance artist making a promising transition to film. Her loose-knit tale of love and longing encompasses a large cast of quirky and memorable characters, foremost among them being Christine (July), a forlorn dreamer who falls in love with Richard (John Hawkes, from HBO's Deadwood), who's going through a traumatic divorce. Richard is desperate to be a good father to his seven- and 14-year-old sons, both of whom have experiences that push Me and You to an almost perverse level of audacity, but July handles their potentially troubling scenes with such delicacy and tact that they seem almost miraculously innocent. The whole film is like that: It never, ever goes where you think it's going to go, and every scene tingles with humor, affection and curiosity for its characters. As it turns routine days into joyous opportunities for discovery, July's remarkable film is not for all tastes, but if you're looking for something new, different, and defiantly out of the mainstream, this gentle comedy's for you. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker
Miranda July, who functions not just as the writer and director of her début but also as the star, plays an artist named Christine-hazy, shy, benign, and very possibly deranged. She falls for a shoe salesman (John Hawkes), who is recently separated and supposed to be caring for his two young sons. The elder boy (Miles Thompson) is seduced, and half humiliated, by a pair of underage girls; the younger (Brandon Ratcliff) logs onto pornographic chat rooms on the Internet. There is much distance and disaffection on parade, and we are meant to take it as coolly and uncomplainingly as the characters do, but that presumption rankles. There is, in fact, much to dislike here, and, for all the skill of the child actors, no amount of tidy payoffs can dispel the air of unpleasantness. In other areas, the movie is more relaxed, and some of the scruffy, shining cityscapes are a sorrowful joy to behold; whether you admire the outcome depends on whether you like the kind of picture in which the most spiritually urgent tribute is paid to a dead fish. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

You and Me Against The World
Miranda July's first film (she both wrote and directed) "Me and You and Everyone We Know" is a personal, thoughtful and humane film about how difficult it is for people to get together in these tumultuous times in which we live...and despite all the obstacles, we still manage to do so: Richard (John Hawkes, so good in HBO's "Deadwood") and Christine (Miranda July) meet "cute" while Christine is with a friend buying a pair of shoes and Richard is the shoe salesman.
Christine almost freaks Richard out.ok...she does freak him out after their initial meeting by "accidentally" always being where Richard is: Christine, in her eagerness to get to know Richard, almost slips into stalker behavior. But this is more a sign of our times.i.e. how difficult it is to meet someone nice, July is saying rather than anything unnatural on Christine's part. And Richard is as lonely as Christine. And they form a bond. They build a fence against all that can go wrong in the world: lying, cheating, not enough money, career problems...all the negative stuff that can clog your life as a whole and your love life in particular. As Richard says early in the film: "I'm prepared for amazing things to happen." And so it does: in the form of Christine.
"Me and You and Everyone We Know" is as sunny, optimistic and loving as a film can be and you leave the theater actually feeling better than when you walked in. But this film is no Pollyanna: Your good feelings come with a price: only after a good fight with the evil forces of the world. And in this case it isn't Dark Vader, The Scarecrow or a pack of Zombies, it's from the vagaries and detritus of the world in which we live: the stuff that lurks out there waiting to defeat you. But Richard and Christine, somehow, someway work as a couple as they never did as individuals...good for them.

Romance and Relationships in the Age of Technology...
Finally! A movie that addresses on almost every age level, the effects of our current internet daze age. For the young children, life consists of going home everyday after school to try and talk and chat and connect with cyber folks. For the teenagers, sex is misunderstood again and again, and the fantasy/reality dilemma continues to leave them feeling lonely. And for the adults, well...the problems are almost the same just with more complexities and ambiguities."Me And You And Everyone We Know" should not work as well as it does. It takes so many risks that could've potentially ruined its own subject matter and themes, but yet, Miranda July's direction takes the uncomfortable (and seemingly 'normal American life') and turns it on its head with surprising and shocking comic side effects. Thankfully though, July never sacrifices the humanity of her characters at the expense of merely getting a laugh. Throughout "Me And You And Everyone We Know," there is a kind of subtle, beautiful melancholy mood woven through the words and actions of every character. Again, considering how provocative and unsettling at times the script is, this seems like a minor miracle. Exploring how the internet and cell phones and technology at large has contributed to isolated individual experiences is just one of the film's many themes. Like the one very rich and very simple scene from the film conveys, me and you and everyone we know are like tiny specs on pieces of paper with a small, but seemingly infinite amount of space between us.Although far from perfect and far from being a cinematic masterpiece, "Me And You" wins at the end of the day because of the very common place from which it begins. Throughout every quirky scene and heartbreaking moment, it remains loyal to its subjects (on both sides of the screen).

Are you willing to play along?
This film is not for everyone and I appreciate the insights in some of the negative reviews. However, it would be unfortunate if such reviews put off viewers to who might otherwise connect with the film. I will try to offer a more successful reading.

The movie's most self-referential scene involves the playful conversation between the two lead characters as they walk to their respective cars. In offering their respective interpretations of the walk, they each take chances by playing a game at the risk that the other will not play along. It is precisely this vulnerability of the characters that makes the characters so endearing and the main narrative so romantic. By taking the risks and playing along with the conversation, they each reveal to the other a common openness to a shared way of relating to the world. By extension, through the entire film Miranda July takes risks, asking the viewer "this is game that I am playing, are you willing to play along?"

A less central but significant scene recognizes that not everyone is willing to play along. An awkward and unsuccessful conversation in the intimate setting of a female character's bathroom between two recently separated characters presents them as each good and decent individuals who simply cannot connect with one another successfully. I take this sympathetic representation of the separated wife as one of the most admirable dimensions of the film. It celebrates the playful artistic stance of the two main characters, the quality that brings them together and allows them to connect, while respecting the alternative ways that other characters relate to the world around them.

The scene in which "you" and "me" move toward and away from one another captures the theme that runs through the interactions of various characters in the movie. Yes, the characters experience various forms of rejection or unsuccessful attempts to connect with others. However, nothing tragic happens to anyone who breathes though lungs rather than gills. For instance, two teenagers running distractedly down the middle of a street could easily have met unhappily with another character driving her car in a funk after partially obstructing her windshield. They did not. At bottom, Miranda July presents an optimistic world in which connecting is tough and brings painful disappointments but perseverance is ultimately rewarded. Living and loving are hard but the world is not ultimately hostile to either.

Two scenes involving a bird in a tree bracket the film, symbolizing an openness to be moved by aesthetic pleasures that extend beyond practical concerns. After receiving inadequate or incorrect explanations of a clanging sound heard early in the morning, the youngest character sets out under the bird image to discover the truth by direct investigation. He meets a kindly buss passenger who gives him the coin he had been clanging against the bus signpost. So, the character gets to the factual, literal truth of the matter. Then as the character clangs the post, the sun rises, echoing an earlier explanation given by his mother but on a more magical level. Clanging the coin signals the sun to rise. With that leap the character steps beyond the mundane into the playful stance of the artist: The childlike willingness to find more in the world than what is actually there is the wellspring of artistic creativity. "This is the game that I am playing, are you willing to play along?"