By Abe Friedtanzer

I still remember when I convinced a few high school friends that the next movie for us to watch together should be Me and You and Everyone We Know. I was fully enthralled by the feature directorial debut of writer-director Miranda July, which explored unconventional romances and perspectives, and, to me, was the definition of experimental and arthouse filmmaking at the time. My friends were not quite as amused, and are still probably angry at me for making them watch it if they haven’t fully blocked it from their memories fifteen years later. 

July’s follow-up, The Future, was intriguing but ultimately disappointing. I was nonetheless very much on board to see July’s latest, released a full nine years after her second, when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this past January. For the first time, July doesn’t appear in her film, and it builds on the transition she made between her first two films to feature a more typical narrative. The concepts continue to be totally peculiar, but the way in which the story is presented is actually quite normal...