Movie Review: ‘The We and the I,’ Directed by Michel Gondry
Maybe not that much, and probably nothing new. Directed by Michel Gondry and starring a boisterous cast of real New York teenagers recruited from the Point, a community center in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx, “The We and the I” neither scolds nor sentimentalizes its young characters. Instead the film invites viewers, of whatever age, to immerse themselves in the chaos, glee and heartache of a long ride home on the last day of school.
The journey — through real South Bronx neighborhoods on a fictitious bus line, the BX66 — is both literal and symbolic. Even in bad traffic it would probably not take until nightfall to get from one part of the borough to another in the long days of June, but the changing light reflects the mood of some of the students as their high spirits are shadowed by loneliness, hurt feelings and the possibility of grief. To call this thrillingly original, deeply felt movie a coming-of-age story would be to insult it with cliché. It’s much more the story, or rather a series of interlocking, incomplete stories, about what it feels like to be a certain age and to feel caught, as the title suggests, between the desire to be yourself and the longing to fit in.
In the course of the afternoon old friendships shatter and new ones begin, romances kindle and flame out, secrets are revealed, and copious trash is talked. From time to time the cacophony gives way to vintage hip-hop beats (from Young MC, Slick Rick and others) that are older than most of the cast. There are occasional forays outside the bus — mostly flashbacks and fantasy sequences — but for the most part the camera nimbly navigates its teeming, claustrophobic interior. We hang out with the bullies in the back, eavesdrop on plans for a sweet-16 party and visit with the driver (Mia Lobo), who might prefer a different route.
At the start of the ride there are a few other adults on board, and they register some of the shock that audience members might feel at the cruelty, bad language and freewheeling obnoxiousness of the younger passengers. The filmmakers and the actors are committed to showing, without apology or judgment, just how badly these kids can behave and then inviting us to like them anyway. Some moments of harassment and humiliation are hard to watch, including the smashing of one boy’s guitar and the ridiculing of a girl for her hair, looks and sexual history, but they are also entirely believable.
So are the details we catch sight of in the midst of all the hormonal chaos. In addition to shouting and whispering at one another, the kids are constantly texting and passing around a short video of one of their schoolmates executing an inadvertent pratfall on a kitchen floor greased with butter. That clip, repeated over and over, starts to feel like a 10-second distillation of the movie’s themes and attitudes. It is hilarious, mortifying, hazardous and random, and the tumbling boy, Elijah (Elijah Canada), who is not on the bus, is at once a celebrity and a scapegoat, mercilessly mocked by the friends who nonetheless love him.
And much as it revels in meanness — the wit of a well-timed put-down and the joy of a good prank — “The We and the I” is finally more interested in love, and in the sweetness that peeks out from beneath the bravado and sarcasm. It has such a generous curiosity about life, and such a commitment to the group’s dynamics, that singling out a few characters seems a little unfair. But our attention keeps circling back to Michael (Michael Brodie) and Teresa (Teresa Lynn), whose complicated history of affection, disappointment and pain is both the truest thing in the movie and the closest it comes to conventional teen-movie romanticism.
Mr. Gondry is best known as a visual magician, and while “The We and the I” does not display the wizardry of his “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (or, for that matter, “The Green Hornet”), it is full of his signature blend of whimsy, inventiveness and Gallic boho-humanism. It is also, like the great “Dave Chappelle’s Block Party,” a valentine to New York as too few travelers (or, for that matter, residents) see it: crowded, loud and rough, but with room for everyone. And if you listen closely, you’ll hear the poetry in the noise.
The We and the I
Opens on Friday in New York.
Directed by Michel Gondry; written by Mr. Gondry, Paul Proch and Jeff Grimshaw; director of photography, Alex Disenhof; edited by Jeff Buchanan; production design by Tommaso Ortino; costumes by Sarah Mae Burton; produced by Mr. Gondry, Julie Fong, Raffi Adlan and Georges Bermann; released by Paladin and 108 Media. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. This film is not rated.
WITH: Michael Brodie (Michael), Teresa Lynn (Teresa), Laidychen Carrasco (Laidychen), Raymond Delgado (Little Raymond), Jonathan Ortiz (Jonathan), Jonathan Worrell (Big T), Alex Barrios (Alex), Meghan Niomi Murphy (Niomi), Raymond Rios (Big Raymond), Brandon Diaz (Brandon), Elijah Canada (Elijah), Manuel Rivera (Manuel), Jacobchen Carrasco (Jacobchen) and Mia Lobo (Bus Driver).
