Me And You And Everyone We Know
(MGM)

There’s a lot of longing in this first feature film written and directed by performance artist Miranda July. Each of the eight major characters is coping with loneliness in their own way and by the end, several of them will have found comfort in each other. July plays Christine, a performance artist who chauffeurs senior citizens around by day and in her off hours, working towards placing her art in a local museum show. Richard (John Hawkes from Deadwood) is a newly divorced father of two, juggling his time between a job in the shoe department of a local department store and caring for his sons, the youngest of which, unbeknownst to him, spends his free time in online chat rooms flirting with lonely women. There’s also a young girl who collects household appliances in her ‘hope chest,’ Richard’s co-worker who courts danger by making advances to a pair of underage teens and the gallery director, a cold and bitter woman who can’t seem to connect with anyone or anything. The film moves at a leisurely pace and there are long stretches of silence that other directors might have tried to fill up with unnecessary noise and dialog. This sweet and quirky little flick examines the nature of fear and self-doubt and how those obstacles can be overcome if we just get out of our own way.--David Bassin