Me, You, and Everyone We Know

“I want you to know that you were loved.” It’s as simple as that. Me, You, and Everyone We Know is a movie about love if you want to put it simply. The scene in the car with the fish is just a glimpse of what the director wanted us to really look at. This is combined with the equally paced scene in which Richard is watching the bird, rather enviously, as his marriage comes to an end. He is first displayed as a man who has lost love. We can see his distress, and we can feel the tension. We see just how violent being unloved can be when he lights his hand on fire. He enjoys it for a few seconds and then it burns him severely. That shot in which he was pounding his flaming hand into the ground was a demonstration of how godless and desperate a person without love can be.
It was not a beautiful film, but it only existed to broadcast the message of imperfect humans needing to feel like they’re perfect. You could never love somebody face to face. You just couldn’t. For one reason or another, you were never really able to look somebody in the eye: you had to look through a mirror, talk through a cell phone, or be seen on a video in order to expose your soul to someone. When the flaws of loveless humans came into view (losing the boys, the fish on the car, or yelling at Miranda’s character to get out of the car), the editing sets a faster pace, and even the soundtrack of the movie seems to disturb you in a way. What I liked about the movie is that it didn’t ask why things were the way they were, but it showed envy to things that can: the portrait of the bird. It’s a feeling of freedom that seems to shake each character in the same way: I wish I could be free to do what I feel.