I was prepared to be intrigued and came out deeply stimulated. There’s a risk with something that has a great formalistic idea that it will rest on those laurels, but this is beautifully modulated and invites you into a lot of different implications as the film progresses.
I also love about Charlie’s work that he is one of the few filmmakers who think about the reality and meaning of how work is seen. Not as a formalistic trick or some…
There’s definitely a better, more focused film hiding in its midst, but I loved all the actual doing there is in the film. Asking you to consider the circumstances of people’s lives without hitting you over the head with it (which makes the moments it spotlights its characters to do just that all the more acceptable).
‘I’m sorry I liked it,’ is probably the best summary I can give. Miranda July (in her writing and films) seems to be about reclaiming sincerity and sentiment, despite the cynicism of the times and the embarrassment of feeling something pure. There is so much that doesn’t work here (Evan Rachel Wood’s grating Kevin and Perry line delivery chief among its wilful choices), but it also gets to certain ideas that are only possible through July’s metaphors about vulnerability, intimacy…
