Me & you and everyone we know

Like Sam Mendes’ American Beauty, Miranda July’s film picks on the randomness and surprises of surburban lower middle-class America although Mendes picked on the cynicism of staid relationships whilst July’s approach is more optimistic towards the nurturing of companionship. We’re introduced early on to a likeable shoe salesman and single father (Hawkes) who is far from career-minded and making the best of things. He looks after two boys (Thompson and Ratcliff) who at 7 and 14, are all-knowing, mature for their age (but unpretentiously so), and also highly individual and entertaining. They are dismissed by most adults merely as children, but we get to see the two of them together often and for many they’ll be the stars of the film.

Into their lives, strolls an artist and cab driver (July) who is at first quite shy around a shoe salesman she has got her eyes on. This film is about those early corky beginnings as two people lacking a little in confidence, begin to get to know each other better.

Decent film ? It’s fine as far as it goes to be honest – it’s obviously refreshing to see characters who could have been overlooked, getting the big focus here. Me & You is about lives that are real, folk that don’t live on lots of money and children learning about the facts of life. It’s a film Todd Solondz or Hal Hartley could have been at the helm of. That’s on the plus side, on the minus is the fact that a potentially better film would have been to make the main focus of the film, the couple as a couple and watching this new family’s interaction together but director July misses that potential and instead you get two characters rich in humour acting apart for much of the film. So a chance missed but at least using child actors Miles Thompson and Brandon Ratcliff to their fullest potential was well exploited.

Matt Arnoldi