Me & You

ME & YOU

Director : Bernardo Bertolucci

Year : 2013

Genre : Drama

Rating : **1/2

Since he began making movies a half a century ago, Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci has become one of the most influential and revered directors in world cinema. With movies such as 'Last Tango In Paris', '1900', 'The Conformist' and 'The Last Emperor', Bertolucci has created many of the crowning achievements in Italian motion picture history and along with his counterparts Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini and Dario Argento, he has become a symbol of all that is great and powerful about film. However, his latest film 'Me & You' does nothing to cement his reputation. That's not to say it's bad; it's acted well and shot beautifully, but unlike a large bulk of his back catalogue, 'Me & You' just does not compare in any way to the master work of the great Bernardo Bertolucci.

'Me & You' tells the story of Lorenzo, a shy and socially awkward teenager who decides to stay in the storage room of his apartment block while his mother believes him to be on a skiing trip. Setting up a sanctuary in the dust covered, dank ridden room, Lorenzo finds peace and tranquillity from a world that doesn't understand him. However, his temporary nirvana is quickly interrupted when his half sister Olivia, a drug addled girl who is trying to quit her terrible addiction discovers his hideaway. Ravaged by the pressures and pain of going 'cold turkey', Olivia seeks comfort and solace in the awkward and reluctant Lorenzo. However, little does he know he needs her just as much as she needs him and soon a friendship will develop between the siblings that will inevitably change both of their lives forever.

While many of Bertolucci's films have an antagonistic, almost acerbic backbone, 'Me & You' is a much more lightweight and frothy affair. Relying on what the audience brings to the film, Bertolucci fails to expand characterisations past their rather generic and conventional forms; Lorenzo is a typically moody and brattish teenager who is quick to turn on his mother when he doesn't get his own way and Olivia plays a recovering drug addict much like many other actors have done in the past. We are expected to feel sympathy for both of these characters due to the fact that they are young, but this doesn't change the fact that they are equally unpleasant people who I wouldn't want to spend any time with in reality. But to give the actors credit, they do a very good job in portraying their rather clichéd archetypes with verve and gusto. It's just a shame that they have to work with such a banal and derivative script and run into the ground subject matter.

For the most part, 'Me & You' stars 2 people and for many actors, they may seem like a daunting task. But both Tea Falco and Jacopo Olmo Antinoro  who plays Olivia and Lorenzo respectively work very well together and the dichotomies of their characterisations make for interesting conversations and exchanges of ideas. However while I liked their performances and I was impressed with the talent shown on screen, I never believed in their characters in any way. The screenplay written by Bertolucci and novelist Niccolo Ammanti is very plodding and drawn out and the dialogue given to Olivia and Lorenzo is very reminiscent of a soap opera. Full of philosophies and rather obnoxious viewpoints, 'Me & You' comes across as a very pretentious film that may have worked better as a short movie. Clearly, Bertolucci thinks that it is much more important and biting than it really is and as a result, 'Me & You' plays as an overlong, slow and sometimes painfully prententious experience. Something I certainly wouldn't expect from this once giant of Italian cinema.

The issues of drug abuse and the psychology of socially awkward teenagers have now been played out to death in films from across the world and to me, 'Me & You' is jus too late to have any cultural or emotional impact at all. It is acted very well indeed and the setting does create an air of appropriate isolation. But for a film from the director of 'Last Tango In Paris' and 'The Conformist', 'Me & You' feels unbearably pedestrian at best.