Watch Me and You For Free

Absolutely Fantastic

A Disappointing Continuation

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

From one of my favourite Italian director, Bernardo Bertolucci. Everyone must appreciate his passion towards film making. While lying in a wheelchair, he accomplished the desire of his fans than trying to do for fame or break the record. After a long gap, nearly a decade later he came up with this simple but wonderful heartwarming drama about a teenager boy. It was a great comeback for the southern living legend.'Me and you' was based on a novel which centers around 15 year-old loner, Lorenzo. To escape the associate with others he fakes his ski trip and hid in his house's basement for a week long. Soon after his half sister, Olivia, finds out who is a junkie, later she joins him. They are mismatched half siblings who never met before. During the stay they come to know each other very well leaving all the family grudges away. The first step for Lorenzo to learn to mingle with others is with his half sister and for Olivia, her half brother helps to free from the drug addict. After a week they come into the real world like a newborn butterfly from the chrysalis leaving the past behind.It was a sweet little cast movie which most of the movie takes place in the basement. I did not get it why there's lots of dislikes of this movie. There are many things in the story to understand, you won't require a close observation to get it. I am totally surprised, is critics are that fool for not getting the movie right. Like I always say ignore the critics and decide yourself. For me it was a cute movie which made me to understand a slice of life.Bernardo Bertolucci did all kinda experiment in his movie characters and relationship. When I saw this movie poster for the first time I thought it could be portrayal of some teenager's sexual experience like the movie 'The Reader'. But I was wrong, 'Me and you' went beyond I anticipated and became a meaningful tale of the two young people. I know the movie won't entirely satisfy for one because of a subject that won't explore in deeper, I mean in detail. But worth mentioning the performances by the lead two as well the direction of Bernardo Bertolucci Next time we hope he will make two times better than this, maybe another masterpiece.7.5/10

It could have been a sort of explosive mix between Last Tango in Paris (seclusion) and la Luna (incest, drug-dependence, difficult teenager). A teenager and his older half-sister secluded in a basement for a week get to know each other for the first time. But Olivia's too busy going cold turkey with heroin and Lorenzo lacks audacity. He also suffers from narcissism, so he's not particularly inclined to let go and explore. So no sex, no kinkiness, no demolition of bourgeois values, no anarchy of bodies and minds. All this adds to the realism of the movie, but leaves you a bit disappointed if you expect a Bertolucci-like cinematic experience. I honestly expected to be shocked and disturbed one more time, with style and good taste of course. Instead, the result is quite bland. Certainly, it has its good moments and shots, but the acting leaves much to be desired and the atmosphere is somewhat post-revolutionary.

Lorenzo(Jacopo Olmo Antinori) is just another teenager growing up in Rome but his mother does not think so.Like any modern teens he has issues, some of which stem from the fact that its his fathers second marriage. Lorenzo is seeing a shrink, looks like a man boy with a wispy stubble, piercing blue eyes and an unruly mop of curly hair.When he agrees to go on a school skiing trip his mother is ecstatic that he is becoming somewhat social.They go to a restaurant for a farewell meal and Lorenzo wonders aloud if the people think they are a couple since his mother looks quite young.Then he pops a hypothetical question- what if all of humanity were destroyed by a deadly virus and only he and his mother remained on the planet, could they consider making babies to keep mankind from becoming extinct? Well, Lorenzo is that kind of a guy and Bernardo Bertolucci is that kind of a director.Me and You is the new film from this iconic and iconoclastic director.This is a small and intimate film where most of the action takes place in the basement of Lorezoes home, he decides to skip the skiing trip and hole up alone in the basement for some quality me time.He answers his moms calls and gives her updates from an imaginary ski resort.Soon he is joined by his step sister Olivia(Tea Falco) who is older and has bigger problems than him.She appears out of nowhere, realizes she has nowhere to go, and decides to stay in the basement with Lorenzo, much to his annoyance.Olivia is a talented visual artist gone haywire on drugs, she tries to cold turkey in his basement and meets her much older man friends.These two confront each other with hostility, get used to each other and become siblings in a sense.She even pretends to be his math teacher in a memorable impersonation.Since this is a Bertolucci film there is always electric sexual tension in the air and the possibility of incest. If you have seen his very controversial The Dreamers(2003), you know what I mean, but here he retreats to more innocent ground.It's almost as if the basement is a vessel from which the gawky Lorenzo emerges transformed into a beautiful butterfly.The last shot will of course remind of Truffaut's 1959 classic The 400 Blows, but while that freeze frame was famously open and somewhat pessimistic, Me and You ends on a cheerful life affirming note. How does Bertolucci know so much about youth?Lorenzo is not an Internet junkie, he is more interested in music and observing ants.Thats pretty old fashioned one might think but in Olivia he gives us a character that is more 21st century (an already passé terminology), and her angst seems more a product of the unlimited freedom that young people enjoy and become victim of.Bartolucci has made films like Last Tango in Paris and The Last Emperor and his ambitions have almost always been matched by his ability to capture the political spirit of the times.In The Dreamers, his sexuality and nudity drenched youth saga in the student revolution of Paris in 1968, he staged a scene near the Cinematheque Francais, capturing the protest over the ouster of its legendary founder Henri Langlois.But in Me and You, the politics is in the background and the basic humanity of two good young people struggling with life in the foreground.By the end of the film we care for both Lorenzo and Olivia and they care for each other.These actors are wonderful, they are so convincing in their roles and are cast so perfectly that there is never a false note in this nearly two hour film about two people in a basement.Yes, perhaps the viewing is made better with this icons name stamped on the film, but had this been made by a young director he would surely have been commended for knowing the pulse of youth in modern day Italy. Bertolucci is 73 years old now and this is his first film in 10 years. The metamorphosis of Lorenzo and Bertolucci's mellowing make Me and You an act of reconciliation. The master is making his peace with the world.

I saw this film at the Rotterdam film festival 2013, within the Spectrum section. I was not thinking much of it when reading the synopsis on the festival website, imagining the confinements of the plot: watching two people in the basement, lasting nearly 2 hours. But someone else made the choice for me to book tickets anyway. I'm glad to it, and admit wholeheartedly that my prejudice was in error.Firstly, the young actor who plays the 14-year old boy, does a formidable job. He is believable throughout as a boy who does not interact smoothly with the world, passing the day with his own solitary hobbies. Instead of going on a ski camp with his schoolmates, he dutifully prepares staying in the basement for a whole week, and takes a lot of trouble not to tell a soul about him hiding there. He wants to be left alone; that is very clear from the start.Secondly, his unexpectedly visiting half-sister is also remarkable in how she interacts with the boy. She pressures him to allow her in while having no place else to stay. She visibly suffers a cold turkey after her heroine addiction, a painful process she has solid reasons to go through, and to come out of it clean. She wants to regain her former life as a successful photographer, and to reunite with a former friend she knew years ago. In spite of not having personal experience with recovering from a drug addiction, I have the impression that the whole painful process is shown very well. It is one of the reasons bringing brother and half-sister closer together. They do not become intimate in the literal sense (Is that a spoiler? Did you expect it?), as far as we are able to observe. In spite of their differences in age and street wiseness, a certain form of mutual understanding is definitely reached.The story develops slowly but steadily, and has no boring moments whatsoever. Ample variety is brought in, by including a few scenes outside the basement, and other albeit short interactions with some outsiders. Another plus is that the story does not develop in the most straightforward direction. For example, there is not even a hint that one of them wants sex with the other, as would be assumed by everyone reading the synopsis. Their situation is difficult, to say the least, and discovery is always lurking around the corner.All in all, I'm not disappointed in the end result. It may not par up with some monumental films that Bertolucci made many years ago, but can that be construed as a problem?? Casting and acting can make or break a scenario like this, in this case with great success. The story left us with an open end, but I think that there was no other way, so also not a problem. This film ended 13th (out of 178) for the audience award with an average score of 4.401 (out of 5) from 1,524 votes.