CommentsXp
Best movie ever!
Invaderbank
The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
Teddie Blake
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
blakelockett45
Writer/director/actress Miranda July does a wonderful job of balancing the quirky nature of these characters with some of the darker turns the plot takes. What really makes the film is the performances all round, John Hawkes is perfectly cast as a disillusioned farther and shoe store worker. The film works as a character study of both adult and adolescent relationships, how we relate to each other as human beings and how we communicate. At the same time the film doesn't seem to take place in a realistic world, more of an idealized one or slightly above reality where characters are free to be themselves without much consequence.All in all Miranda July's film will appeal to the true film lover and the lover of quirky independent flicks. This is a well written, directed and acted film with a lot of substance seven out of ten stars
Syl
Miranda July wrote, directed, and acted in this film as Christine Jesperson, an elderly taxi cab driver and aspiring artist, in Los Angeles, California. John Hawkes played Richard Swerskey, a newly separated father of two young sons, who works a dead end job in shoe sales at a department store. John Hawkes does a fabulous job in playing a sympathetic role in this film. There are plenty of awkward times in the film. There is plenty of realism in watching everyday ordinary people living their lives. The pedophile character is perhaps the most troublesome. He leaves disturbing notes on his window but nobody seems to read them except the two teenage girls who walk by everyday. There is a lot of relevant topics that the film deals with on an everyday level about online pornography, divorce, coming of age. The film is very relevant years later in today's world. There are no major stars but the story itself. Viewers will appreciate and relate to the characters in this film. They're just struggling to get by in life and trying to find happiness an fulfillment.
handbledzoin
Look at the box cover. Seems like a nice cute quirky indie comedy, right? And all those awards. It must be good! Well, you'd be wrong, my friend. Dead Wrong.In the first fifteen minutes or so, a man sets his hand on fire in front of his two young sons, two people in a car try to rescue a goldfish in a bag on top of an SUV in traffic, and a middle-aged man sexually propositions two teenage girls. It gets worse from there. It's as if Nia Vardalos had tried to adapt a really bad John Waters screenplay and effed it up. I am mostly a liberal person, but this movie sent the needle on my Wrong-O-Meter straight into the red zone. Afterwards, I had to scrub myself down like Meryl Streep in SILKWOOD after being exposed to radiation. Avoid this movie like a dead rat on the sidewalk.
ItsAlwaysSomething
I know I'm probably in the vast minority, but I really didn't think this film was all that great.I understand that "MAYAEWK" was meant to be kind of a sociological study of how people relate (or, completely don't) to one another. Having said that, I don't think that alone can carry a full-length movie. A full length movie generally requires a plot to make it work; unfortunately, this movie doesn't have one.In fact, this film felt like a disjointed compilation of really corny student films where the actors make cryptic metaphors, perform nonsensical stunts, and say or do so-called shocking things merely to make the audience think, "Wow! This film is SO poignant and edgy!" Yawn.I found myself watching this movie waiting for the punchline or, at the very least, some kind of resolution to the characters' stories, but there weren't any. In the end, the shoe salesman and artist never go on their date, we never find out why the little girl keeps a dowry, we never find out why the man who left signs hides when the teenage girls go to his door, etc.To me, the reasons behind why the characters act the way they do is 1000% more interesting than merely presenting a superficial view of how they act. I felt kind of betrayed when I made it to the end of the movie and thought, "That was it? That was 'one of the year's best films' according to Roger Ebert?!" It was kind of like waiting in a line at an amusement park only to get to the end and realize that the line WAS the attraction; such a letdown.At best, the movie is mildly entertaining because of the weird things the characters do. The little boy's "poop back and forth" scene truly was priceless, but in the end, that doesn't save this plot-less pointless movie.D+
