“Me & You & Everyone We Know" at the Figge Art Museum -- March 9.
Thursday, March 9, 6:30 p.m.
Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second Street, Davenport IA
Winner of the coveted Caméra d'Or at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival and a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, writer/director Miranda July's Me & You & Everyone We Know will enjoy a special Figge Art Museum screening on March 9 in conjunction with the exhibition Sporting Fashion: Outdoor Girls 1800 to 1960, the Davenport venue's latest movie series highlighting award-winning, groundbreaking feature films that celebrate the cinematic achievements of women.
With July's specialty-house hit and writing/directing feature-film debut also the recipient of the Independent Spirit Producers Award, Me & You & Everyone We Know consists of several subplots that revolve around an intertwined cast of characters. The film begins by introducing Richard (Winter's Bone Oscar nominee John Hawkes), a shoe salesman and recently separated father of two. After being thrown out by his wife Pam (JoNell Kennedy), he gets an apartment of his own to share with his children, Peter (Miles Thompson) and Robby (Brandon Ratcliff). He consequently meets Christine (July), a senior-cab driver and amateur video artist, while she takes her client to shop for shoes, and the two develop a fledgling romantic relationship. Meanwhile, two of Richard's neighbors, 15-year-olds Heather (Natasha Slayton) and Rebecca (Najarra Townsend), develop a playful relationship with a much older neighbor Andrew (Brad William Henke). Everyone's plots ultimately converge in July's wistfully raunchy comedy, with the Rotten Tomatoes consensus stating, "Miranda July's debut feature is a charmingly offbeat and observant film about people looking for love."
One of the movie's biggest champions was the late critic Roger Ebert, who named Me & You & Everyone We Know the fifth-best feature film of its decade. In his annual EbertFest of movie screenings, Ebert said, "Me & You & Everyone We Know is delicate, tender, poetic, and yet so daring in some of its scenes that you sit in uncertain suspense, wondering if July can get away with her audacity, which ventures to the edge of what mainstream audiences find acceptable. She can. She knows exactly what she's doing." He added, "It's a comedy about falling in love when, for you, love requires someone who speaks your rare emotional language. Yours is a language of whimsy and daring, of playful mind games and bold challenges. Hardly anybody speaks that language, the movie suggests – only me, and you, and everyone we know, because otherwise we wouldn't bother knowing them."
Me & You & Everyone We Know will be presented in the John Deere Auditorium on March 9, admission to the 6:30 p.m. screening is free, and more information is available by calling (563)326-7804 and visiting FiggeArtMuseum.org.
