I saw Me and you and everyone we know when it opened in Montreal on Friday and it made me feel better about movies.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s far from being a perfect movie. It’s a first film with a lot of the faults that first films always have. It’s not even the best first film I’ve seen in recent times but it still made me happy. It wasn’t tight and it didn’t obey the rules that make movies « better » movies, but that’s exactly why it made me happy. It was refreshing, even though it felt self-conscious at times. And it accomplished an amazing exploit: making ASCII art funny.
I need to know that audiences can still appreciate a different voice and tone, some looseness in structure and an awkward kind of charm. I need to believe that there can still be some spontaneity in movies, even though movie production is the least spontaneous process of all.
Of course, as I always do these days, I rewrote the film in my head as I watched it. The romance shouldn’t have been at the center of the movie. The strength of the filmmaker seemed to be in the direction of young actors and to me that’s where the heart of the story was. Things like that. It’s hard to stop the voices in my head even when the movie is really, really good…
Me and you and everyone we know won many awards, including a Cam�ra d’Or at Cannes and it’s currently touring around the world. The filmmaker has a blog where she sometimes lets one of the fantastic young actors express himself.
Now if only the Cin�ma du Parc could get better seats and a better layout! I love the programming at that cinema but I hate going there. It’s like watching movies in someone’s damp basement with every single tall person in the room sitting between me and a small tv screen with bad speakers.
