Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.
Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.
ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.
Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
wvisser-leusden The subject of this film isn't new at all. Nor is it original: the coming of age of two girlfriends. We follow them from their childhood in 1973 up to the first years of the 21st century.First, 'Me without you' offers a nice going back to those years for everyone around at the time. Getting nostalgic without overdoing it. After having gotten yourself in the right mood, it's only a small step to recall memories about your own first love-experiences from those years. This film's soapy & easy-going style invites you to them.This presentation is well ed by a tasty picturing. Without being great or expensive, it delivers just a right amount of intimacy to let the plot work.
MBunge This is one of those movies where it's supposed to be like real life, where stuff just sort of happens without the artifice of plot moving things toward a conclusion, and it's a good example of both the strengths and weaknesses of that style.Me Without You is about two girls who live next door to each other in England. Holly (Michelle Williams) is the intellectual one and Marina (Anna Friel) is the wild one. It follows their lives from being children in 1973 to grown women in 2001 and how their close friendship degenerates into disturbing co-dependency.The best things about this film are its smart observations of the rising and falling tides of life and how it lets the performers stretch themselves in the moment. The story recognizes that people flourish and languish at different times in their lives, that they aren't static or standing still. As a child, Holly is clearly the follower to Marina's leader but when they get to college, Marina is the directionless party girl while Holly is the one with her life in order. And as young adults, it is Holly who's stuck in a rut while Marina's life is moving forward. That also allows both actresses a chance to develop their characters into real people, establishing a core identity but also showing us how those people are both changed by time and circumstance, yet remain the same in fundamental good and bad ways. Without having to service a plot, the characters can develop an organic sense of realism.But the real life stylings of the story also hamper the film. It's all well and good to create complex and intriguing characters, but then you have to do something with them. That's where the plot comes in, giving a sense of purpose and direction that doesn't usually exist in real life. It connects all the action and behavior together as it moves from beginning to conclusion. Movies like Me Without You consciously avoid linear, propulsive storytelling
and they usually run into a problem as some point. In this movie, it comes as it shifts from Holly and Marina as college students to adults.The film is able to rely on the natural events of growth and development from childhood to young adulthood to give the story some structure. That sort of self-evident direction doesn't exist as grown-ups, though. There aren't that many definable moments that flow from one to another in a coherent pattern. In Me Without You, that results in the film having to introduce a bunch of really arbitrary elements to Holly and Marina's lives, things that don't naturally flow from what we've seen of the characters up until then.Another interesting thing about this film is how it demonstrates the difference between movie nudity in the American and British cinema. When someone gets naked in an American movie, there's almost always a purpose for it. It may be salacious and sleazy or it may have a genuine artistic point, but characters in American films get naked because someone wanted them to get naked at that point in the film. In British and European films, thought, nudity is often portrayed as though it were accidental or happenstance. The actors are naked just because they're in a situation where people would normally be naked and there's no effort made to cover up. They'll sit up in bed, the covers will slip down and
whoops, there's a nipple! Whether that's a more enlightened approach to movie nudity is up to each viewer to decide for themselves.Me Without You is one of those films that you'll enjoy if you buy into the characters and become invested in how their lives turn out. It asks for an emotional commitment from its audience. But if you just want to be entertained and not bothered by a movie, this probably isn't what you're looking for.
DeanNYC When you live in a suburb of London, in the mid 1970s, your best friend is whomever lives nearby. Such is the case of Holly (Michelle Williams), a bookish and sweetly obedient girl and Marina (Anna Friel), a wild child of an equally wild mom (Trudie Styler), who helps mold and shape the thinking of her more reserved neighbor. Add in Holly's crush on Marina's brother (Oliver Millburn), toss in some drugs, cigarettes, and a college professor (Kyle MacLachlan) when they go off to University and you have a brilliant character study, set against the New Wave 80s, and into the 90s.Holly must deal with control issues from all around her: first her stodgy parents, then dodgy Marina, who has her own agenda, even as she is trying to sabotage Holly's.It's a taut, real story, with authentic performances straight through. The questions it raises about what friends do for and to each other are explored, and the dynamic of who "runs" a relationship is a key element to the tale, just as much as the fantastic soundtrack of 1980s Punk and Brit Rock music.
Mara_Medvede The story is about these two young women, who have been "friends" all of their lives. There were boys, jealousy, love and hate...and still it's all about these two girls - Holly and Marina. Just the truth without any hyperbolas and unnecessary sweetness. This movie was so close to me that all of the time I watched it I had goose bumps. The central idea of this movie has been following me since I was 12...It's unbelievable how precisely director has described my (as well as any other human being's) thoughts, emotions...There are these people in our lives that just won't ever go. It's not love and it's not friendship either and it's not that we really want them to leave (?)...it is some kind of bond between people...as the Marina says "There's no me without you". Watching this movie I realized how weird is this fact - you can hate, despise one people so much....and still there is something that holds you together...and I guess there is no point to resist, otherwise there will be no you :) - and that's frightful isn't it?