Herald rating: * * * *
There are times when not knowing whether you like a movie - and the long time you spend afterwards pondering your own bewilderment - means its has done its job. That it's taken you by surprise.
Such is the effect of Me and You
and Everyone We Know. It's a film that manages to be both hilarious and discomfiting, and original without flaunting any notion that it's experimental - despite director-star Miranda July's background as an avant-garde artist in many media.
On the surface the film, its structure and characters, might be dismissed as another typical independent American kook-fest.
After all, it is centred on July's own Christine. She's a struggling artist who, when she's not at her day job as a cabbie for senior citizens or bugging the snobbish curator of her local gallery to get her work exhibited, finds herself falling in love.
The object of her affection is shoes salesman Richard (Hawkes) who is so desperate for something to happen in his life that he sets fire to his hand in front of his two sons.
The flames mark a rare moment when young Robby and teenage Peter pay any attention to their father. Especially as they're too busy pretending to be adults on an internet sex chatroom.
That's where the most perturbing scenes of Me and You ... come in.
But as this feels like its straying into the territory of Todd Solodnz's unnerving Happiness, July manages to deliver a sweetly funny twist to the episode.
There's something topsy-turvy to the whole film - the adult characters are as anxious and vulnerable as children, while the kids already seem to have their world figured out.
The film, and its seven or so main characters, revolves around Christine and Richard in a structure reminiscent of the likes of Magnolia or Short Cuts.
But Me and You ... is no grand vision ensemble piece like those. It's just a disarmingly personal and original view of the odd trouble that the pursuit of love can get you into.CAST: Miranda July, John Hawkes, Miles Thompson, Brandon Ratcliff
DIRECTOR: Miranda July
RATING: R18 (sexual content)
RUNNING TIME: 90 mins
SCREENING: Rialto from Thursday
Herald rating: * * * *
There are times when not knowing whether you like a movie - and the long time you spend afterwards pondering your own bewilderment - means its has done its job. That it's taken you by surprise.
Such is the effect of Me and You
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