Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know centers around seemingly every day people and their struggle to form relationships through various barriers. Throughout the film, technology plays a huge role in both strengthening and blocking relationships. For Christine and Richard, technology could be argued to hamper their relationship. Their first meetings are honest, pure. They say what they mean and don’t waste time. They use the metaphor of their walk down the block as a way to express what both of them are actually hoping for. However, it is when Christine must rely on Richard’s phone call that the progress of their relationship is hindered. At one point Christine exclaims “Why won’t you call!? We have our entire lives to live! But you have to fucking call!”
Contrasting this however, when Christine attempts to meet with Nancy the art dealer face to face she makes no success. It is only when Christine uses her medium and the video camera to reach out to Nancy does she listen, letting Christine know through technology by calling her and saying “Macaroni.” Nancy’s relationship with Robby as well, is only successful through technology, through the Internet. When they meet in the flesh it is obvious that Nancy’s fantasies can only be lived online.
The imagery of birds is used throughout the film as a way to show Miranda July’s wish for how relationships should be. The cliché “free as a bird” would be an obvious correlation to make. By book ending the film with this bird imagery, we are shown that the characters are able to free themselves from the barriers of their relationships.
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