Customer Reviews

Me Without You [VHS]

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Friendships can be odd. And I have never seen a more realistic friendship depicted on film than that of Marina and Holly in the engrossing and powerful "Me Without You." The film brilliantly reveals a less tidy, more insidious version of 'friends forever', one in which undying loyalty coexists with cruelty and subterfuge.

There's no question the friendship between affection-starved man-eater Marina (Anna Friel) and studious Holly (Michelle Williams) will spin out of control. The script by Goldbacher and Laurence Coriat paints Marina as spiteful from puberty on, her deceptions growing more vicious and unbelievable as the picture moves from the pair's 1970s girlhood into young adulthood. Goldbacher is adept at visual storytelling, capturing intimate moments with breathtaking acuity. She's also got a couple of spirited actresses in her corner.

Williams drops her "Dawson's Creek" persona immediately, mastering a middle-class English accent and kindly, mousy demeanor. The actress' manner fits a girl whose mother has told her, by way of comfort, "Some girls are pretty, and some are smart." Her performance is touching, heartfelt, and certainly eye-opening. She is truly an underrated actress.

Friel wonderfully conveys her sadistic character's tortured bond to her friend. She turns a scene where Marina tells Holly, "There's no me without you," into something poignant instead of overwrought. Her performance is powerful, emotional, and beautiful.

Kyle MacLachlan ("Sex and the City") makes an insinuating weasel as a professor who sparks romantic hopes in both young women. As Marina's cocktail- swilling mother, Trudie Styler (Sting's wife) cuts a glamorously wasted figure, the kind of woman who's great fun as your friend's mother and a nightmare as your own.

Much of "Me Without You" strikes a familiar chord and intelligently captures the difficulties that can disrupt even a close friendship. Goldbacher often spins her story against the backdrop of 1970s British pop records, including The Clash, Adam Ant and Depeche Mode. It's a wonderfully entertaining film that is true to life and gut-wrenchingly real. A wonderful little gem that deserves to be seen.

Worth it to witness the hard, ugly truth of friends who love each other and will spoil everything for one another to prove it. Also worth it for the well-crafted acting and very accessible script. However, for me, this tale of friendship became the mere backdrop for a surprisingly romantic story of longing and disappointment.

Michelle Williams does a remarkably subtle job throughout (I didn't expect this performance from her), and she is able to convey her character's infatuation for Marina's older brother with a truth never seen in the lovesick characters of Dawson's Creek. But the true revelation here is Oliver Milburn, who adds layer after layer to the cool but kind Nat. It is no wonder that Williams' Holly can't let go of her crush on this young man; in the skilled hands of Milburn, Nat becomes a "real boy" and is one of the most endearing "objects of affection" that I have seen in the movies in quite some time.

All performances are wonderful, with some small, very funny moments that can be easily missed if you aren't paying attention (I caught many on my second viewing).

Why not 5 stars? Well, I must confess that the ending left me wanting more. Also, don't expect extra's on this DVD. Except for the typical scene selections, subtitles (which was actually helpful - there is a lot of whispering in this movie) and 3 previews, there is nothing really added to this DVD.

This excellent film follows two girls who have been friends from childhood. They've lived next door to each other and are in and out of each others' houses daily. Holly is a sky, bookish, Jewish girl whose mother `comforts' her by saying "Some girls are pretty, and others are smart." Thanks, Mom. Marina, OTOH, is a knockout, has glamorous but unstable and unreliable parents, and a brother whom Holly secretly lusts after. As they grow, their friendship remains the one constant in their world - but one does wonder that it takes so long for Holly to realize that Marina is just using her and being very mean about it in the process.
Without either knowing (but of course all is eventually revealed), they have an affair with the same college professor, but throughout, there's this underlying attraction of Holly to Marina's brother, Nat, even after he's married a French actress.
Great flick with a touching ending. Terrific acting by everyone.

Typically British.
If you are a Brit. in your thirties then re-live an era with which you probably look back with some fondness.
If you are American then this is typical student Britian in the late seventies and eighties. The somewhat colourful language is not there to offend but to typify British youth culture of the day. It's a compelling view and I recomend it strongly.
Shame that it was released so long ago on the planes but has only just hit the cinemas.

Marina and Holly were best friends as children and vowed to always be together. But as they grow older, the nature of their relationship changes for the worse. Although Marina (Anna Friel) is an outgoing party girl, she seems unable to find an identity of her own and instead relies on the smarter and more introverted Holly (Michele Williams) to provide her with one. Holly is in love with Marina's brother Nat (Oliver Milburn), but Marina's jealousy has always come between them. Holly can hardly have a relationship with any man before Marina claims him for herself, leaving Holly heartbroken. After college, Holly pursues a writing career and Marina seems to make a career of forcing herself into Holly's relationships. For some reason, although she blames Marina for her misery, Holly allows Marina to turn her life upside down.

"Me Without You" is an especially true-to-life character drama. Marina and Holly are both interesting people, and each is sympathetic in her own way. The film's characters, their actions, and their feelings are all believable. Anna Friel and Michele Williams are exceptionally effective in their roles. It turns out that Michele Williams, probably best known for her teen roles in "Dick" and in television's "Dawson's Creek", is a very fine actress. Kyle MacLachlan has a small role as Daniel, one of Holly's and Marina's love interests. A story about a childhood bond that gets out of hand and becomes a co-dependent relationship of disastrous proportions sounds like it might be either a colossal bore or a horror flick. "Me Without You" is neither. Sandra Goldbacher's adept direction moves the story along at a fair clip, and it is easy to share these characters' frustrations.

I first caught this movie while flipping channels. I was immediately drawn to the love/hate relationship between the two main characters. The performances of Anna Freil and Michelle Williams (very under-rated actress.. she is always excellent) were real evoked memories of days gone by. The love triangle (and I use that word liberally) was also one that well written. On top of everything else, the movie soundtrack is filled with past gems that bring the story and timeline to life. I highly recommend this movie for fans of the Bridget Jones movies.

This movie explores a friendship, that moves through the 70s and 80s, of two girls/women who both need and repel each other. The situations and dialouge were commendable, but Michelle Williams made the material come alive. Her wistful, longing looks, together with her breathtaking beauty, make Holly (her character) sensual and accessible.

I am sure that women will relate better to this film than men. But, that said, some will find themselves within these scenes also.

Make the effort to see this movie, and enjoy it for what it is.

At the end of the first time seeing this I didn't like it. Then as the days passed, I kept thinking about it and it snuck into my heart. I watched it two more times before returning it to Blockbuster.
Every woman who has ever had a best friend or a frenemy will appreciate this movie. I've never seen the dark side of female friendships represented so well. Michelle Williams is Holly, "the sweetest girl in all the world." She is an intelligent, shy, overlooked beauty. Her best friend's brother (Oliver Milburn), is absolutely captivating and charming. If you don't fall in love with this movie, you'll fall in love with him. Anna Friel does a capital job as her manipulative best friend. The contrasts between their personalities and the events that unfold are both heartbreaking and heartwarming.
Also has a great soundtrack, and it is not your typical chick flick. Even my husband enjoyed it.

Friendship is an important thing in living and there are plenty of films that tell the stories of great friendships. "Me Without You" would not be one of those films, because you repeatedly have to wonder when you are watching this 2001 film whether Holly (Michelle Williams) and Marina (Anna Friel) really like each other. The two girls grew up living next door to each other in London in the early 1970s, and when they were young, dressing up and bouncing on their beds, they make a pact of eternal friendship. It seems clear this is a mistake, because Holly is the smart one but follows the lead of the dominating Marina, but there is nothing the two can do about it because their lives are so completely intertwined that a trauma for one invariable involves the other as they grow up and move on into the 1980s.

"Me Without You" is directed by Sandra Goldbacher from a script by Goldbacher and Laurence Coriat, and I wonder what personal demons they are exorcising here because the pain and regret rings so true. I also find myself considering this film to be the anti-"Beaches." There you had two young girls who form a friendship because of a chance meeting and who keep in touch over the years, especially during the key moments in their life. Her you have two young girls who form a friendship because they live next door and they have nobody else in their lives. They live together as often as not and are in each other's lives almost constantly, so that every time they fall in love the other seems to be some sort of impediment to living happily ever after. We jump from year to year, with attention paid to what Holly and Marina wear along with the music they listen to, and the question is whether the two will be able to survive their friendship.

You can pick your moment where this friendship clearly becomes dysfunctional and a bad thing rather than a good thing, but I think the die is cast when Holly finally sleeps with Marina's brother Nat (Oliver Miburn). She has had a crush on him since the beginning, but Marina sees this as some sort of betrayal, and from then on Holly is the sympathetic figure in this story, although to some extent she wins that position by default. The division between the two friends becomes starker when they both end up in the bed of Daniel (Kyle MacLachlan), an American lecturing at their college. The both want to sleep with Daniel and he obliges them both, and then is thoroughly befuddled when it turns out the two young women are closer than the thought. For Marina the relationship seems to be nothing more than another competition with Holly, while for Holly the truth takes away all of the joy of an important personal epiphany.

I was not sure why Michelle Williams was adopting a Brit accent to do this film, but she was the reason I checked out this film, not just because I saw a shot of the seaweed scene. To date in terms of "Dawson's Creek" alumni, Williams might be the forgotten one because she does not get big films but she is putting together a solid resume with films like "Prozac Nation" and "If These Walls Can Talk 2." The important thing here is that if Williams's name is enough to get people to see this movie with its almost brutally realistic depiction of friendship between two young women, then so much the better. "Me Without You" is not an uplifting film, but given its honesty it certainly is a refreshing one.

"I'd always wanted to make an unsentimental film about the complexities of women's friendships," declares the director of "Me Without You." The film is however, very sentimental, and explores the love relationships of its two main characters. Sometimes they share the same love interest, at times involuntarily. Sometimes they hate each other over a lover. Sometimes they laugh, and sometimes they cry. The film is also quite simple and not complicated at all. That hurts it a little. We would have loved to go deeper into what makes up a woman/woman friendship; very special and very desirable on one hand, but very difficult and suffocating on the other. The director chooses to just treat the visible part of the subject matter, and does so successfully. The result - a film as charming as its two characters/interpreters. Michelle Williams especially, gives a very subtle and emotional performance, that her role in "Dawson's Creek" doesn't allow. A very "cute" film about love in general. For those who have a wonderfully suffocating best-friend, they will relate well to this piece. PhilEd. www.Au-Cinema.com