Miranda July’s debut Me and You and Everyone We Know is a very cute and quirky and overall important movie to me. It brings up the issue of human connection during a digital age. And anybody who knows me will know that if there is a movie about human connection, I’ll most likely poop back and forth with it. Forever. (Instead of asking how one could do that and more importantly WHY anyone would want to do that, it would be better if you just watched the movie).
Christine, July’s character, is working on an art project where she sets a camera on still photos of two or more people and plays out conversations with them, giving them a dialogue, a story, anything to give the still photo more life. Many of the characters in the movie are, in a way, these still photos. They live together, work together, eat together, but don’t communicate very well with each other. One subplot is entirely through a web chat where the line between innocent and perverted is hard to see. (pooping back and forth. Forever. POOPING BACK AND FORTH. FOREVER) Christine with her art project in hand, stands face to face with the person who receives art project submissions and is told to mail it in to avoid it getting lost.
Why I find the movie so moving and important to me is because I DO those things. Someone calls me and I let it go to voice mail, wait a few minutes, and TEXT them back. It doesn’t matter who it is. I just don’t like talking on the phone. Why is that? I’ve asked myself this question a few times before, but I really tried to answer it after watching this movie. Was I scared of bad conversation? No. Do I not like talking to the caller? Not usually. Then what was it? Laziness. Pure, fat –ass –waking – up – at – 3:30 – pm laziness. (This whole “not taking any classes” thing is ruining any chance of a good sleep schedule. A social life at that)
There are just as many instances of skewed communication as there are people trying to make some. Richard, a divorced father of two played by John Hawkes, literally sets his own hand on fire in order for his kids to just TALK with him. I might be that type of person who has to have a family member burn something of themselves in order to become aware of them. I don’t want to be that type of person.
