I seem to recall that ME WITHOUT YOU was a well-regarded film when it first came out in 2001. However, when I watched for the first time this past Saturday night on Reel 13, I found it to be nothing more than a slow-moving and uneventful melodrama that ultimately failed to be engaging or evocative in any way.
The film takes place in the span of 28 years, from 1973 through 2001, chronicling the tumultuous, though apparently (and inexplicably) unbreakable bond between British BFF's Holly (Michelle Williams) and Marina (Anna Friel). Possibly the first mistake writer/director Sandra Goldbacher made is attempting to cover so much ground. In doing so, the narrative not only seems to meander, but starts to get annoyingly repetitive as the two girls go through man after man, drama after drama, cat fight after cat fight albeit in four different eras. A more focused scope might have allowed her the opportunity to add complexities to the plot and also to dig deeper into each of her characters, particularly Marina, who unfortunately comes off as a little two-dimensional.
The film does do a good job, from a design point of view, of capturing each disparate time period, though it does take great pains to point out its chronological details. Characters often cite songs or TV show titles as if to give landmarks to the audience as to which time period they're in. The framing also calls great attention to period posters on the wall or various other time-appropriate props. All this is a good idea in theory (but perhaps unnecessary given that each chapter of the film starts with a graphic explaining what year it is), but one almost wishes that it were a little more carefully buried in the background, as if a just a part of the world they lived in. By calling such attention to it, those moments seem forced and unnatural – we're aware we're being manipulated somehow. They did everything short of pointing a neon sign at each of their clever period details (Look what we did! We got the period details right. APPLAUD!!!).
The saving grace of the film, from my point of view, is the performance of Michelle Williams as Holly, who gradually becomes the protagonist of the film and I suspect also a stand-in for the director herself (I couldn't help but get the sinking feeling during the film that many aspects of it were autobiographical. Hence, the lack of perspective). Williams received an Oscar nomination for her supporting work as Heath Ledger's long-suffering wife in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. I was in the minority as those who were unimpressed. I felt that she was frequently over-the-top in that film. Here, she elevates a character, who I think was bland on the page, to a well-rounded, three-dimensional, strong, but flawed heroine. She has several outstanding moments in the film, created almost exclusively by her performance choices. She gives the character a soul and quite frankly, what more can you ask from an actor?
Williams is not enough, however, to rescue the film as a whole. The weight of the melodrama is just too heavy. It occurred to me midway through the film that several aspects of the plot resembled a plot out of Jane Austen. All of the various men suitors, silly parents and the contrived way people meet as well the obligatory long lost love who consistently gets away – all of this reaks of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE or SENSE AND SENSIBILITY. What's even worse is that the film seems to be aware of this – at one point, Friel even compares a plot point to a scene out of EMMA. Didn't it occur to anyone that this might be a bad thing? (I don't have an issue with Jane Austen, in general. Melodrama was the order of the day in her time, but a straight modernization just doesn't fly. You would need to give it a little spunk the way Amy Heckerling did with CLUELESS). At another point, another side character has a comment while witnessing another dramatic fight. He says, "This is better than Dynasty". That comparison is probably even more apt – and also quite unfortunate.