Miranda July's "You, me and everyone we know" is one of those films that stay with you afterward for a long time.
The film contains many remarkable scenes that depict the essential loneliness of the human being - be it the loneliness of children or grown ups. To me this film is all about the divide and the connection between the adult world and the world of the child.
It seems that the children in the film have this yearning for experiencing the "empowerment" of the adult world as much as the adults seem to yearn for the playfulness / care free life of the child. The conception they have about the world that the other part leads is contrary to reality.
There is one scene where Julie in the shoe store overhears the conversation between Richard and her mother. "Children are adaptable" - her mother says: Where upon she asks "Am I adaptable?". Children are forced to be adaptable as they live in the care of grown ups, and cannot yet make their own choices.
Adults also have to adapt to new situations, but they must do it without guidance or as a consequence of the will of others. "There was no time for a time out" Says Richard in comparing the fights with his ex-wife to two children fighting and being sent to their rooms.
In discussing his relationship with his colleague Richard mentions that they used to "sleep all day like babies" and the colleague says "It sounds perfect."As if this unconcerned sleep of the child is something ideal; a sacred place that exists before the adult concerns of sex, relationships and responsibility enter the scene.
The carefree life of children as envisioned by the grown ups is shown to not actually exist because the children are already in the process of imagining their lives as adults.
The girl Julie with her hope-chest containing all the kitchen appliances any grown person could even imagine having. In her mind she already has a very detailed idea of her life as a grown up. All the way down to the way she will speak to her little daughter when cooking dinner in the evening. She can share her fantasy of the future only with an other child.
Christine Jefferson is an artist, but what she does is she plays, and she has turned this playfulness into an art form. She plays with ideas and conceptions about relationships and identity.
The sexual game that is played out between Richard's colleague and the two teenage girls is also one of those places where the split between the adult world and the world of the child becomes apparent. The girls want to experience sex, but have no idea of what it actually is. Their experimentations functions well with Richard's son because with him they have a kind of common ground in respect to experience and knowledge about sex.
When the girls and Richards colleague trade fantasies about each other it only functions until they try to transgress the fiction which they have created between them. The girls are relieved when it would seem that the shoe guy isn't at home, and he in turn is terrified when realizing that they actually came to his house wanting something.
The same is true of the chat between the youngest boy and an other character in the movie. he/she has clearly read him as an adult, where as he has not read anything dangerous into her fascination with his poop-tale. The scene when the two people meet is very characteristic for me; for the way the film depicts the divide and connection between the world of the adult, and the world of the child. This character and the boy reach some kind of understanding that momentarily breaches the divide between adult and child. The back and forth forever symbolizing the ultimate form of acceptance any two people could ever experience together.
Richard's conception of his own children is a times simplistic and detached from the actual lives of the boys. It would seem that most often the world lived by the other half is a closed book.
The boys are simply, "good at being boys" as he says to a customer. When Christine is coming for her first visit; he tells the boys to stop cleaning up - the room should be more "natural - more like just children playing. A comment that is totally at odds with the folding and ironing skills of the very same children.
When Richard's hand heals at the end of the picture, it is also a sign that his time of mourning the loss of his relationship is about to end. It would also seem that the spell / silence between him and the children will be broken. Their expressionless faces that just beg for him to go away, and stop talking in most of their scenes together seem to thaw a little bit. They seem to want to let him in again.
Richard in turn also opens a space for Christine in his life. He has become "too old to drive". Figuratively speaking, he has reached a maturity / come to terms with his new life as a divorcé.
The guy with the coin in the last scenes of the picture captures the division between the mind of the child and the mind of the adult perfectly. "I am just passing time", he tells the little boy. But when the boy taps the coin and the sun rises - he is somehow making time pass. He is making it happen. Children think they have that power, and they think it will be increased once they grow up. Adults know that this kind of power is the illusion of the child and that it was always already lost.
The film contains many remarkable scenes that depict the essential loneliness of the human being - be it the loneliness of children or grown ups. To me this film is all about the divide and the connection between the adult world and the world of the child.
It seems that the children in the film have this yearning for experiencing the "empowerment" of the adult world as much as the adults seem to yearn for the playfulness / care free life of the child. The conception they have about the world that the other part leads is contrary to reality.
There is one scene where Julie in the shoe store overhears the conversation between Richard and her mother. "Children are adaptable" - her mother says: Where upon she asks "Am I adaptable?". Children are forced to be adaptable as they live in the care of grown ups, and cannot yet make their own choices.
Adults also have to adapt to new situations, but they must do it without guidance or as a consequence of the will of others. "There was no time for a time out" Says Richard in comparing the fights with his ex-wife to two children fighting and being sent to their rooms.
In discussing his relationship with his colleague Richard mentions that they used to "sleep all day like babies" and the colleague says "It sounds perfect."As if this unconcerned sleep of the child is something ideal; a sacred place that exists before the adult concerns of sex, relationships and responsibility enter the scene.
The carefree life of children as envisioned by the grown ups is shown to not actually exist because the children are already in the process of imagining their lives as adults.
The girl Julie with her hope-chest containing all the kitchen appliances any grown person could even imagine having. In her mind she already has a very detailed idea of her life as a grown up. All the way down to the way she will speak to her little daughter when cooking dinner in the evening. She can share her fantasy of the future only with an other child.
Christine Jefferson is an artist, but what she does is she plays, and she has turned this playfulness into an art form. She plays with ideas and conceptions about relationships and identity.
The sexual game that is played out between Richard's colleague and the two teenage girls is also one of those places where the split between the adult world and the world of the child becomes apparent. The girls want to experience sex, but have no idea of what it actually is. Their experimentations functions well with Richard's son because with him they have a kind of common ground in respect to experience and knowledge about sex.
When the girls and Richards colleague trade fantasies about each other it only functions until they try to transgress the fiction which they have created between them. The girls are relieved when it would seem that the shoe guy isn't at home, and he in turn is terrified when realizing that they actually came to his house wanting something.
The same is true of the chat between the youngest boy and an other character in the movie. he/she has clearly read him as an adult, where as he has not read anything dangerous into her fascination with his poop-tale. The scene when the two people meet is very characteristic for me; for the way the film depicts the divide and connection between the world of the adult, and the world of the child. This character and the boy reach some kind of understanding that momentarily breaches the divide between adult and child. The back and forth forever symbolizing the ultimate form of acceptance any two people could ever experience together.
Richard's conception of his own children is a times simplistic and detached from the actual lives of the boys. It would seem that most often the world lived by the other half is a closed book.
The boys are simply, "good at being boys" as he says to a customer. When Christine is coming for her first visit; he tells the boys to stop cleaning up - the room should be more "natural - more like just children playing. A comment that is totally at odds with the folding and ironing skills of the very same children.
When Richard's hand heals at the end of the picture, it is also a sign that his time of mourning the loss of his relationship is about to end. It would also seem that the spell / silence between him and the children will be broken. Their expressionless faces that just beg for him to go away, and stop talking in most of their scenes together seem to thaw a little bit. They seem to want to let him in again.
Richard in turn also opens a space for Christine in his life. He has become "too old to drive". Figuratively speaking, he has reached a maturity / come to terms with his new life as a divorcé.
The guy with the coin in the last scenes of the picture captures the division between the mind of the child and the mind of the adult perfectly. "I am just passing time", he tells the little boy. But when the boy taps the coin and the sun rises - he is somehow making time pass. He is making it happen. Children think they have that power, and they think it will be increased once they grow up. Adults know that this kind of power is the illusion of the child and that it was always already lost.