Reviews

When looked at as the sum of its parts, _Me and You and Everyone We Know_ is a love story dealing with the complications that accompany love in all of its familiar forms and stages. The pain of recovering from a lost love, the curiosity and embarrassment of early sexual exploration, the not necessarily compatible nature of physical and psychological attraction, and the need, equally pathetic and beautiful, to feel loved, in spite of or maybe even because of your faults. The film explores these issues through the insinuation that all the characters involved, those dealing with the issues, are playacting, copying half-comprehended examples given to them through television, movies, their friends and family.

Weighty stuff, huh? When you hear that summary and do a little research on the film—find out that it's as art-house as can be and was written and directed by Miranda July, a woman who is best known for her horrendous spoken-word records and creepy modern art pieces, it's okay to approach this film with low expectations. When looked at part by part, however, the film is delightfully irreverent, touching in its humility and hilarious in its honesty.

The film follows a loose narrative that tells its story by presenting a portrait of several richly- detailed characters, along the lines of _Happiness_ or _Gummo_—already I hear a lot of you moving the mouse pointer up to the "Back" button, but please stick with me. The main focus is a budding romance between Richard, a recently-divorced shoe salesman with a strange philosophical streak, and Christine, a struggling modern artist. They seem to be the only two characters who are cognizant of the nature of the system in which they live, of the playacting. The two meet by chance and are immediately drawn to each other's refreshingly strange way of speaking. Christine begins to stalk Richard as he walks to his car, and they liken what they see as the beginning of their potential relationship to the walk: the first street is insane joy, the next several are routine and boredom, the end of their walk will be pain.

How this film differs from others like it is that is that the characters it presents are extremely likable, and the world in which they live, despite its weight, is not very bleak at all. The parts that, when described laconically, seem incredibly pretentious or stupid, are presented with such charm and humor that they are, remarkably, affective. Take for example a scene early in the film, right after Christine and her elderly father have left a store. They notice that the driver of the SUV in front of them has just purchased a goldfish and accidentally left it on top of their car. The pair philosophize; discuss in very plain terms how the only way it could possible survive is if the SUV stays at a steady pace forever, never stops moving. Christine goes so far as to give the fish a little requiem, tell it that it will die loved.

Sounds horrible, right? There are so many easy symbols there, and they just kind of bash you over the head with them. But it's just so wonderfully done! Christine and her father read their lines with a strange stiffness not seen anywhere else in the movie, as if they are mocking the weight of their words. The cuts are comical, in between their philosophy we are given close ups of the empty, thoughtless eyes of the fish.

This film isn't for everyone, and it certainly isn't perfect. But it's unique, to say the least. It's rare that a vision as fresh and abstract as July's manages to present itself with such humility and tact, and its rare that such a profound film manages to be so entertaining.

If you've never lived in a small midwestern town (predominately white, predominately poor) then I suppose that the immediate power of this film would be lost on you, though it's really not that hard to translate the myriad of sick and twisted characters in Gummo to whatever community you live in. I have been a poor white person my entire life and although I've never come across a retarded girl being pimped out by her brother or a pair of kids killing cats to sell to a Chinese joint for meat, I have cut through the back yards and sat beneath the windows of the buildings where these kinds of things may very well have happened. They most likely didn't, of course. But they just might have...

Gummo is a look at things that just might be. What Might Be going on down the street. What horrible secrets Might your neighbors Be hiding? We all play this game; we think of the worst things that people might do, and we hope, in a sick way, that they might actually be doing them.

"Old Man Johnson, with the hook for the hand? You know he got that hook reaching into the woman's bathroom in the school, some girl took a knife and just cut it off." "The guy across the street, and I heard this from Judy who is friends with his ex-wife, she says that he used to dress up like a clown and give out candy, but one day he was caught with this little kid, doing stuff. What you mean, what kind of stuff. Dirty stuff, you know." Sometimes these displays are ridiculous and funny, sometimes they're disgusting, and sometimes they're truly horrible, but they are always enthralling. Gummo is a series of these displays.

No, there isn't a cohesive plot and I know that more than a few simple film goers will be genuinely confused and possibly even angered by this point (I might suggest that these people go watch some Buñuel, or at least try not to have such a narrow conception of film). Gummo really acts more like a portrait than a traditional film, playing on the viewer's emotions through characters instead of plot.

There are no social or political implications to Gummo, which may lead to the mistaken but commonly-held belief that this is somehow an exploitation film. This is not a story of a town in need of a savior that will not come or even of problems that need to be solved. The lack of narrative ensures a lack of message: this is a neither a criticism nor a sympathetic portrait. It's a raw feed, without morals, and it's shot and acted so realistically that it might seem as if Korine were shoot a faux-documentary. The characters are just exaggerations of people that you may have come across, characters that you've already created--the ADD boy who plays tennis and has the world's coolest mullet, the young girls who put electric tape on their nipples to make them perkier, the creepy little glue-sniffing boys who murder housecats and pay to sleep with a retarded girl. These aren't real people and Korine doesn't want you to think that they are. They are merely what we've always thought our neighbors capable of and we've always, in a sick way, almost wanted to believe. Why else would urban legends stick around so long? Why else is most disgusting gossip usually the most interesting? Gummo gives us all what we want, unflinchingly, and doesn't ask to be thanked.