Me, You, and Everyone We Know (2005)

Written by, directed by, and starring Miranda July

I rarely laugh out loud at the movie theatre, but I did during Me, You, and Everyone We Know. And if Miranda July doesn’t put you off it in the first five minutes, you will probably end up really liking this movie. It’s mostly about two adults, Christine (played by Miranda July) and Richard (played by John Hawkes), who want their lives to be just a bit exceptional, but whose efforts end up seeming ludicrous against the dull background of everyday life. Christine is a performance artist who spends much of her day driving old people around in an ElderCab while Richard is a recently separated father of two boys who sells shoes at a department store. Of course, the two meet up and an awkward romance ensues. Besides Richard’s sons a few other children hover around the periphery of the main characters’ lives. The scenes involving these children are some of the funniest and most disturbing of the movie. A dark undercurrent, which never truly comes to the surface, is the way in which adult frustration can impact the lives of young children. All in all a good movie, which is quite accurately described in most reviews as offbeat and quirky.