Me and You (Io e te)

Dir: Bernardo Bertolucci

2012

***

I found it difficult to watch Me and You and not wonder how this was a film by the same man who bought us such greats such as The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900 and The Last Emperor. I wasn’t a huge fan of 2003’s The Dreamers either but I had hoped that the last nine years was enough time to give his next project some real thought. I liked the concept, I just think it was totally wasted. It’s a sad looking swansong, that’s for sure. The story is simple: young Lorenzo (Jacopo Olmo Antinori) has difficulties communicating and relating to others – although I don’t think he autistic or anything – he just prefers his own company and his own thoughts. When his class goes to the mountains for a week on a skiing trip, Lorenzo secretly settles in the basement of his apartment building, pocketing the trip’s fee to spend on provisions. However, his happy solitude is interrupted with an unexpected appearance of a strange girl called Olivia (Tea Falco), who turns out to be his half-sister. Olivia, from his father’s first marriage, is nine years older than him and he hasn’t seen in a long time. She asks if his parents are at home, and he pretends not to know, thinking his parents might have asked her to investigate. A short while later he hears someone trying to open the lock to the basement and Olivia enters, looking for something in a box of her old things. She doesn’t find it and leaves in desperation. In the middle of the night she returns, knocking on the window and asking Lorenzo if she can stay the night. At first he refuses categorically, but when she threatens to tell everyone he is there, he backs down. This turns out to be useful, since his mother calls again, more insistent than ever that she needs to speak to a teacher, and he persuades Olivia to pretend to be one. It turns out, though, that Olivia has become a drug addict and is suffering from withdrawal from heroin, and this is why she’s in a desperate situation. She asks him for some sleeping pills. The only place he can think of getting them is from his grandmother (Veronica Lazar) who is dying in hospital. He visits her and finds the pills in her handbag, but ends up spending much longer at the hospital than intended when his grandmother wakes up and asks him to tell her a story. Once back in the basement, Lorenzo finds Olivia passed out, almost dead. During his absence she has rummaged through all the boxes and found and taken some sleeping pills. She sleeps solidly for three days. By the end of the week, the relationship between Lorenzo and Olivia has changed from hostility to complicity, since they both feel rejected by society, both have secrets, and both feel understood, without judgement, by the other. Olivia promises not to use drugs anymore and they both promise to stay in touch. On the last morning Lorenzo awakes to find a note Olivia has left, reminding him of their mutual promise. I don’t want to speak ill of Bernardo Bertolucci, he was a great director and I really admire that he made Me and You so late in his career, especially in relatively bad health, but I don’t think there was enough of him in the story. His greatest films are the ones where he has thrown himself into the picture, this film feels like someone else’s, Niccolò Ammaniti’s. I actually think that the two leads give great performances and the direction itself is adequate, I just don’t think the film worked as a whole. I think I would have preferred more static shots, with the odd contrasting moving sequence. The dialogue was also lacking, indeed, a really good script could have lifted the film no end. I did like the interjection of music and I could really relate to it at times, I just couldn’t connect with the characters. I think it all happened a little too fast and as well performed as Olivia was, I’m not sure I ever truly believed she existed. I think the difference between the original script and what was actually filmed was the biggest let down. I feel that a bold conclusion was softened for a wider audience, a decision that I feel backfired spectacularly. It’s a firework without ignition, it’s all there ready to explode but nothing ends up lighting it and even if a light was found, towards the end the wick becomes far to damp to ignite anyway. I’m being perhaps overly harsh, but this is the great Bernardo Bertolucci, it should have been a masterpiece. Like I said, it’s tragic that this was to be his last film and it’s not without its magic, it just makes me sad on several different levels is all.