Me Without Me
Holly and Marina form the center of Me Without You, a stream-of-consciousness tale of two young British women whose trajectory takes their friendship from the 1970s through the present day. In director/screenwriter Sandra Goldbacher's dark world (Goldbacher directed the overwrought film, The Governess, starring Minnie Driver), no one escapes a lifetime of suffering.
Especially not Holly and Marina. Matched by an aggressive soundtrack that rivals Forrest Gump in its attempt to trace a timeline, Me Without You finds the girls frolicking cheerfully in the early 1970s, as bookish Holly (Michelle Williams, from Dawson's Creek) and devilish Marina (Anna Friel) bond in their differences and vow to remain friends. Even as shy Holly eyes Marina's sinewy older brother, Nat, (Oliver Milburn, The Browning Version), Marina's sinister motives are plain to any seven-year-old.
These girls are a match made in hell. While Holly is supposed to be an ugly duckling overshadowed by Marina's sexy siren, the persona never gels; Holly is more attractive in every respect and never comes close to resembling what she's clearly intended to be: an insecure bookworm plucked from Janis Ian's ode to awkward misery, At Seventeen.
For some unknown reason, charismatic Holly continues to sanction wicked Marina—whose personality contains not one shred of decency, unlike, say, Bette Midler's shallow character in Beaches—and, since the entire movie is sprinkled around the two, you begin to hate Holly for hanging around reckless Marina.
Using a pleasant storybook style with phrases, music and frames, Goldbacher's coming of age plot quickly becomes drowned in its own sense of doom. In 1978, Marina introduces Holly to heroin and indiscriminate sex. In 1982, Marina robs nearly everything of value to Holly, while clinging like a desperate addict to Holly's friendship. By 1989, with Holly clinging to a sliver of self-esteem, Marina remains in combat mode against her best friend, ready to extinguish the most remote flame in Holly's dark world.
It's both unbelievable and unbearable, yet Holly's tortured life holds interest, mainly because she's in love with Nat, who keeps coming in and out of her life courtesy of Marina's manipulations. Actor Oliver Milburn as Nat is captivating whenever he's on the screen and Michelle Williams acts her heart out as Holly. The pair is so convincingly mature so early in life that they are obviously meant to be together and it's wholly inconceivable that Marina's lowlife could keep them apart for five minutes let alone five years.
Goldbacher, with fellow screenwriter Laurence Coriat, expresses many real moments of poignancy—Nat's narrative letter to his sister, Holly's sensuous sex fantasy, Holly's father rejecting Marina's advances—but they are random sparks in the dark. There's a lot to like about Me Without You, including the songs and performances by Milburn, Williams, Allan Cordunner as Holly's loving father and a memorable turn by an alluring Marianne Denicourt as Isabel, Nat's French girlfriend; unfortunately, none of what's good is enough to compensate for Me Without You's indiscriminate musings.
Finally, Me Without You tries to finish by combining the personality conflict of Beaches with the sweeping sense of time in Forrest Gump, but the film possesses neither the rich melodrama of the former nor the morality lesson of the latter. Peppered with interesting scenes and strong performances, Me Without You plays like a miserable "Me Without Me", which leaves you with nothing.
Especially not Holly and Marina. Matched by an aggressive soundtrack that rivals Forrest Gump in its attempt to trace a timeline, Me Without You finds the girls frolicking cheerfully in the early 1970s, as bookish Holly (Michelle Williams, from Dawson's Creek) and devilish Marina (Anna Friel) bond in their differences and vow to remain friends. Even as shy Holly eyes Marina's sinewy older brother, Nat, (Oliver Milburn, The Browning Version), Marina's sinister motives are plain to any seven-year-old.
These girls are a match made in hell. While Holly is supposed to be an ugly duckling overshadowed by Marina's sexy siren, the persona never gels; Holly is more attractive in every respect and never comes close to resembling what she's clearly intended to be: an insecure bookworm plucked from Janis Ian's ode to awkward misery, At Seventeen.
For some unknown reason, charismatic Holly continues to sanction wicked Marina—whose personality contains not one shred of decency, unlike, say, Bette Midler's shallow character in Beaches—and, since the entire movie is sprinkled around the two, you begin to hate Holly for hanging around reckless Marina.
Using a pleasant storybook style with phrases, music and frames, Goldbacher's coming of age plot quickly becomes drowned in its own sense of doom. In 1978, Marina introduces Holly to heroin and indiscriminate sex. In 1982, Marina robs nearly everything of value to Holly, while clinging like a desperate addict to Holly's friendship. By 1989, with Holly clinging to a sliver of self-esteem, Marina remains in combat mode against her best friend, ready to extinguish the most remote flame in Holly's dark world.
It's both unbelievable and unbearable, yet Holly's tortured life holds interest, mainly because she's in love with Nat, who keeps coming in and out of her life courtesy of Marina's manipulations. Actor Oliver Milburn as Nat is captivating whenever he's on the screen and Michelle Williams acts her heart out as Holly. The pair is so convincingly mature so early in life that they are obviously meant to be together and it's wholly inconceivable that Marina's lowlife could keep them apart for five minutes let alone five years.
Goldbacher, with fellow screenwriter Laurence Coriat, expresses many real moments of poignancy—Nat's narrative letter to his sister, Holly's sensuous sex fantasy, Holly's father rejecting Marina's advances—but they are random sparks in the dark. There's a lot to like about Me Without You, including the songs and performances by Milburn, Williams, Allan Cordunner as Holly's loving father and a memorable turn by an alluring Marianne Denicourt as Isabel, Nat's French girlfriend; unfortunately, none of what's good is enough to compensate for Me Without You's indiscriminate musings.
Finally, Me Without You tries to finish by combining the personality conflict of Beaches with the sweeping sense of time in Forrest Gump, but the film possesses neither the rich melodrama of the former nor the morality lesson of the latter. Peppered with interesting scenes and strong performances, Me Without You plays like a miserable "Me Without Me", which leaves you with nothing.
