Forgive me while I get a little self-indulgent and sentimental. Michel Gondry is a very important filmmaker to me. The man made his feature film debut in 2001 with Human Nature, a strange movie about a woman whose body is entirely covered in hair and all the wacky shenanigans that ensue. He followed it up in 2004 with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, one of my all-time favorite movies and one of the top five films that changed and defined the way I would view movies from then on. It’s a beautiful movie about relationships and how love can go sour and how people will stupidly return to something they know to be a bad thing because, hey, it’s love. His next, 2006’s The Science of Sleep was almost as good; it is a weird fantastical film about a man who goes to live in France and has trouble differentiating his fantasies from his reality.
Michel Gondry has a new film out and it is called The We and the I. It appears to be his first film fully ensconced in realism. It tells the story of a group of inner-city teenagers who are out of school, but who all share the same bus route. As they interact they grow and learn and evolve in, I’m sure, heartwarming or poignant ways (but not lamely so, because we should trust Mr. Gondry, The Green Hornet aside).
The We and the I is currently playing at Village 8 Theaters as the newest installment in the Louisville Exclusives series, and it is scheduled to be there until Thursday, June 13. Village 8 is located at 4014 Dutchmans Lane. Further theater information and showtimes can be found at the Village 8 website.
Image: Internet Movie Database
