The We and the I: Gondry Gets Real

When someone says "Michel Gondry,” what's the first thing that pops into your mind? Most people probably think "Eternal Sunshine,” or "White Stripes videos,” or for the younger crowd, "Green Hornet" (shudder). For me, I'm probably now going to always think "The We and the I.” While not as visually creative as Eternal Sunshine, I also attribute that movie's success primarily to the brilliant screenplay by Charlie Kaufman. The We and the I had a very improvised script, and doesn't even use remotely professional actors. This, right here, is a Director's Movie, and Michel Gondry does an absolutely wonderful job, making what was by far my favorite film in last fall's Toronto International Film Festival.

The story is simple—so simple, many people might decide not to even give the flick a chance once I describe it, so I'll tread carefully. The film follows a large bus full of teenagers as they all leave high school. The movie rarely leaves the bus, and focuses on this group of teens, as one by one they all leave, and soon there are only two or so left to contemplate their lives.

A film set entirely in one bus, focusing on a bunch of loud, profane, often irritating urban teenagers? Yeah. Sounds like shit. I know it sounds like shit, and believe me, despite Gondry's pedigree I was in no way expecting a great movie going into The We and the I (having just about the worst movie title ever doesn't help, either). But honestly, if this film finds the audience that I think it might…it could be the next Breakfast Club.

That John Hughes classic, as you'll recall, was also set almost entirely in one small location, and also focused primarily on a group of selfish, awkward, philosophical teenagers. Certainly, the acting caliber here is nowhere near Breakfast Club's—these are all regular, ordinary teenagers, plucked from an actual high school and thrown into a real bus, and they act about as well as you'd expect. Hell, at the end of the film, one of the kid's mothers writes a letter thanking the filmmakers, and they put it over the end credits.

So how can a film be great, if the acting is damn-near terrible from top to bottom? Because they're bad-acting teenagers playing bad-acting teenagers, that's how. One of the subplots is how a popular bully is basically doing it all as an act, and when he's alone with someone who he thinks he could actually be friends with, that kid calls the bully out on his BS. The teens acting horribly actually adds to the scrappy, gritty feel of the flick—this is, for better or for worse, what most teenagers sound like, talk like, and act like. They're always putting on a show for their friends, and for their enemies. For me, the lack of professionalism and subtlety added to the movie's appeal. It grounded everything in a realism that I don't think would've been there if Vanessa Hudgens and Justin Beiber were playing the lead roles.

Gondry restrains himself a little from his usual whimsical directorial approach. Despite a couple "dream" sequences (like one kid imagining going to Hell, and all the fire is made of cardboard) and flashbacks to another classmate being chased by a gang, Gondry keeps things not only in the bus, but in the real world, too. There isn't any Be Kind Rewind stuff going on here—the French filmmaker somehow understands urban-city American life, and rarely calls attention to himself. The film is still quirky, yes, but it's also rough-around-the-edges, and by the time things started getting quite serious in the last act, I was absolutely in love with it.

The early bad reviews for the flick seem to be confused by the whole approach of the film. They dislike the choppy 3 act structure; something I found completely believable given the circumstances of everything happening in one long bus ride. They hated the poor performances, which as I've already said, added to the realism. Some even disapproved of the excellent score by electronic band "Boards of Canada.” And perhaps the most odd of all, the (numerous) bad reviews take to task the fact that none of the characters are likeable.

Ummm…does anyone actually remember high school? How many people there did you really love and treasure at every single moment? Look, I loved the recent Perks of Being a Wallflower too. But that was a high school fantasy—most kids aren't always that eloquent, mature, and deep. Most are rude to elders, talk loudly about pussy and dicks, and always think they're better than everyone around them. I used to be like that too. We all were. And I think it's incredibly brave of Gondry to show us a world of real-life teenagers—ones that we often hate as much as we love.

This probably wasn't the best review for The We and the I. It almost seems like everything I love about it, I'm also critical towards. But that's the kind of scrappy, aww-shucks movie it is. Gondry doesn't apologize for the behaviors of these characters, nor does he ask us to empathize. He simply invites us to watch them, and live in their shoes for 2 hours. I did, and found it one of the best films of the year.