The Open Road: "Me and You and Everyone We Know" in the Formula of Recent Sundance Releases
07 August 2005
Miranda July’s debut film "Me and You and Everyone We Know" (2005) is a bonafide hit. The Film Four and IFC release garnered a the Camera d’Or at Cannes – given to the best first film – and a Special Jury Prize at Sundance. Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize, Sundance’s top honor within a given category, "Me and You" is the first 2005 Sundance film to see notable release outside the festival circuit, an honor that went in 2004 to "Napoleon Dynamite" (Jared Hess), with "Garden State" (Zach Braff) a respectable second.
This tissue that connects these three films is not insignificant. "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Garden State" saw remarkable popularity at Sundance, resulting in quick acquisitions, quick releases, and quick positive responses from the general public. "Napoleon Dynamite" became the year’s rage, among younger audience members especially. "Garden State," the year’s creamy filling. The same, so far, has been true of "Me and You," to the point that its achieved positive responses. It is still to be seen what kind of filling it is.
In the meantime, July’s film about two single people oddly attracted to one another is a true directorial debut, as was Braff’s, who only had a short to his credit before "Garden State" wowed audiences with its story of a man’s reluctant return to his home and past and the unexpected relationship he find there. Hess’ "Napoleon Dynamite" was more of a culmination of a few shorts and films about the same general super-nerd characters set in the same place: Preston, Idaho.
These are all films that work for similar reasons. The stories of "Me and You," "Garden State," and "Napoleon Dynamite" spin around moments of deliberate sadness and pain: Napoleon (Jon Heder) is the high school joke, "Garden State"s initiating action is the death of the protagonist’s mother, and the separation of a couple allows for "Me and You" to move forward. These are only rocks, however, dotted along landscapes of wonderful humor. Each film is extremely funny, including, beyond the simple gags, the unique momentary touch of a reflective situation, both comedic and insightful, that helps lifts the story above the usual laugh: the collected oddities of Preston, including llama, in "Napoleon," the infinite abyss in "Garden State," the goldfish in "Me and You."
Significantly, the three films all have two characters to direct their movies’ action. The way these characters do that is different:
-- "Me and You"s awkward couple – shoe salesman Richard (John Hawkes in a truly wonderful performance) and performance artist Christine (July) – pull the camera into their separate lives at the beginning of the film until their stories converge.
-- "Garden State"s Andrew Largeman gives the film his perspective until he meets Sam, the girl who, more than any of the other characters in the film’s menagerie, begins to control traffic. Largeman’s actions, after all, take a sudden turn from the generally nihilistic to caring deeply about the newly-met girl.
-- "Napoleon Dynamite"s title character also has a slew of associates to contend with, but when Pedro begins to run for class president – about three-fifths of the way through the film – the story, finally, settles into drive.
It is notable here that the action in the three films moves in the same way: begin in the life of odd and misunderstood male, male goes to work/school/home to contend with cast of characters who he may talk to or hang out with or be brothers of but who, generally, do not understand him – this may include a female butting her head in from time to time to voice her perspective – male meets the female who seems unique and worth talking to, male is reluctant to believe female understands him, male realizes he has a buddy – be it female or Pedro – life goes on with little more than a relationship accomplished. The films end suddenly with merely a hint of longing and many loose ends.
This is a stretch, granted. More, it is a skeleton. The plot line is not so clear as to be concise – that can be seen by all the asides that butt in, like Pedro – and these films are, indeed, disparate enough to be discussed individually, but for the closeness of their introduction to the world. Moreover, "Napoleon Dynamite" is an anomaly of a film in itself, designed around a character more pastiche than person: a collection of all the weirdness of all the high school students anyone has ever known. The film is least like the other two.
Nevertheless, a formula has begun to emerge. If a filmmaker wants his/her film to come out of Sundance alive and screaming, make it a slice of a misunderstood young male’s life with only a few steps to the film’s narrative climax. Avoid at all costs the Aztec temple of emotional conflict and destruction of lives, physical and psychological, that leads to the remarkable climaxes of, say, "Citizen Kane," "The Graduate," "The Godfather," "Apocalypse Now," "2001," "8 ½" – to get away from the United States a short distance – or even something as subtly brilliant as De Sica’s "The Bicycle Thief."
Two things about this formula.
(1) It is not bad: plenty of comedies, nee plenty of films – great films, genius films – succeed on the premise of the unique character’s short step to the top: "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner," "Amelie," "Harold and Maude," "Annie Hall." In short, not all stories are world-breakers. Every story should be told at the point of a character’s life where he/she is most revolutionarily effected. That may only be the moment he and she shout into the quarry... The moment he dances on stage... The moment the performance artist helps him the photo in the tree... Not everyone solves world hunger; let us drink to that.
(2) This formula is easier to do – the subtle story about love, rather than "The Godfather" – especially on a first film. So, to see it as a common thread in recent independent releases coming out of Sundance is not surprising. Moreover, Sundance is not to blame for creating a half-sure formula for success. They merely choose a wide spread. The audience decides, through festival attendance and distributors, which films go beyond the festival’s borders. Then a more general audience decides which films are worth going out to see. The "Garden State"s and "Me and You"s of the cinematic world did not win top prizes at Sundance. Shane Carruth’s "Primer" (2004) and Ira Sachs’ "Forty Shades of Blue" (2005, to be released in Sept.) did that. "Napoleon Dynamite," "Garden State," and "Me and You and Everyone We Know" merely fit the bill.
For now.
Remember, cinema is a fickle fiend. The misunderstood young man is the story today. Tomorrow, at least by next weekend, the story will be something else entirely. This has been the pattern all along, on greater levels and to greater extents: German expressionism, Italian neo-realism, French new wave, film noir, anime, New Hollywood. This is, in fact, the artistic norm: gothic, Romanesque, renaissance, realism, impressionism, modernism, post-modernism.
A formula is not news, then. It has just been the way.
It is a little grand, perhaps, to suggest "Me and You" is on a path like that of Monet, Chagall, Seurat, whomever. Some formulas have better staying power, better receptions, better revolutions. The recent Sundance trend is not one of those, clearly. It is not even a new trend, rather a copy of a copy of a story that worked once upon a time.
"Me and You" is therefore part of a pattern, not a movement. That pattern proves, though, that formulas are not to be shied away from: art exists on many levels, and form – formula – is, as it has been, an open road.