Me Without You
Tags: realism

Plot synopsis:
This drama charts the development of the friendship between two very different girls (Holly and Marina) from their teenage years during the late 1970s to the present day.
The first scene depicts the girls at 12 years old in 1973. Although they are next-door neighbours, both girls come from very different backgrounds. Holly (Williams) is Jewish and has an overprotective mother, while Marina (Friel) has a mother who is much more laid back and her father is almost never around. At this point, Holly also develops a crush on Marina's older brother Nat.
The film then cuts to 1978, which finds them lying on Marina's bed smoking because they're bored. Later on, Marina runs over to Holly's house to tell her that she's found out about a party that Nat's girlfriend, Carolyn, is having. When the girls get to the party, the others ask if they would like to "play a game", although the "game" simply involves shooting heroin. Nat's girlfriend soon leaves with the other two guys; while Marina wants to follow them, Holly begs her not to. However, when Marina gets up to leave, Holly kisses Nat and the two end up sleeping together. Marina sees them and becomes angry, telling Holly that Nat only had sex with her because he was stoned and probably didn't even recognize her. The next morning, Nat wakes up Marina and asks her to leave a note with Holly that says what happened last night was "beautiful" but a case of bad timing, and that he looks forward to their future. However, Marina angrily rips up the note and goes to see Holly who is sitting in her yard reading a book. When Holly asks Marina if Nat said anything about the night before, Marina lies, and says "no", but reassures Holly that they will always have each other.
The film then jumps ahead to 1982, at which point Holly and Marina are attending university together. In addition, they are both sleeping with the same professor; a man that Marina had originally thought boring. Nat comes to visit, and he and Holly reconnect. Holly decides she wants to be with him. But, when she goes to end things with her professor, she sees Marina kissing him goodbye. She runs back to Nat, so upset she forgets about the relationship they were about to enter. Holly soon confronts Marina and the two fight. While Marina soon makes up with Holly, she ruins things between Holly and Nat by telling them both that the other hasn't wanted to talk to them. Ultimately, the three of them are reunited at a New Year's party, where Nat announces his intent to marry his girlfriend Isabel.
The next scene finds the girls in their late 20s, in 1989. Holly is a writer, dating a man Marina has chosen for her. Marina is dating a Jewish doctor. Nat comes over to Holly's place and tells her he talks to her in his head all the time. They are interrupted by Holly's boyfriend returning, at which point she tells Nat to leave. Shortly thereafter, she decides she wants to go to America, but Marina tries to stop her by telling her she is pregnant.
Some time later, the characters are reunited at another New Year's Eve party. While playing "Guess Who?", Nat begins to describe someone in a very deep way. Holly guesses Isabel, but Isabel claims it's Holly. Marina says she's bored with this game and they should play sardines. As they wander through the dark house, Marina begins to kiss Holly's boyfriend. Holly and Nat then find each other, however, and Holly tells him she also talks to him all the time in her head. When Holly's boyfriend refuses her advances, Marina freaks out and runs outside. Holly confronts her, and tells her they have to stop being friends. Marina tells her "there's no me without you!" Holly tells her there is. As Holly walks away, Nat catches up to her and asks if he can come. The two ride a bus away.
The final scene finds the characters in 2001. Nat and Holly have a daughter, and Marina has a daughter and a son. Marina and Holly do not appear as close as they once were, although each accepts the other's presence for the sake of their two young daughters, who appear to be best friends.

Review: This simple however very rich tapestry of two young girls growing up together throughout the 70's, 80's, until today reminds me why I love movies.
I could watch it over and again still never tiring of the struggle between the two main characters Holly and Marina to grow up into independence.
This is especially difficult for Holly as she strives to live under her best/worst friend Marina's constant control.
I'm a middle-aged white man, not a teen chick, and yet I must confess to having felt that this was a fine bit of work from so many POVs- and an entertaining package for their efforts.Yes, there were times when it was too clear that the actresses were improvising their lines for a scene- but I could forgive it!
Great movie about friendship, life, hardships and love!!!.
It's a very realistic movie about LIFE--- friendship, growing up, partying, sex, learning from mistakes, morals, family problems, falling in love, self-destruction, standing up for yourself, being with someone you don't love because it's expected of you, long term friendships and much more.
Me Without You puts this right, following the relationship between Holly (Williams) and Marina (Friel) from the seventies through the present, watching as them grow up and exploring their feelings towards each other and each other's families.Imagine a British answer to The Ice Storm or American Beauty, and you're about half-way there, as this contains performances of genuine passion and emotion which leads you to engage on a surprisingly deep level with the characters as it delves beneath the surface of friendship.
More importantly, though, this is a film which will really make you think, make you question the nature of friendship and your friends - you'll want to recommend this film to them, but you probably won't for fear of losing them afterwards!A delight, and not at all what you might expect from a British film starring an ex soap actress.
I cannot fathom why the above reviewer calls it "maudlin" and the comparison to Antonia and Jane seems way off base, as does the comment that this is somehow like a Mike Leigh film!
Also the comment on the "Miranda" character does not inspire confidence since the character's name is Marina!In any case, this film deftly captures several eras with its complex and lush visual design, reflecting the inner world of Holly who is a creative, romantic soul and the outer surface of Marina who is a chameleon-like, savvy trendsetter.
Williams and Friel are excellent and their evolution from teenagers to young women to early thirties is convincing and enthralling.
I also found Oliver Milburn as Nat to be charming, and though she has a small role the French actress who plays his fiancé is great...I last saw her in My Sex Life and she is also terrific in that.On its surface (the candybox colors, the fluffy music) this might seem like a Brit chick flick but it's really an exploration of what happens when an obsessive friendship grows beyond its usefulness..
Summary: A messy, busy, charming little English film about girls muddling through `Me Without You' is a nice little movie (or should I say film?) that's a lot of fun if you'll let it be.
When you go from the little girls to the young women you may think they're wholly different people.
But quite early you start to care about both women, and about Marina's sweet and good looking but tragically unavailable brother Nat. This is a women's picture in the good sense that it knows what makes men attractive to women and why that both matters very much and isn't quite enough.
The relationship between Marina (Anna Friel) and Holly (Michelle Williams) makes disfunctionality and exploitation between people seem okay, and that's fine too.
It takes a few decades for this to end, for Holly to realize that Marina needs her more than she needs Marina.I think what makes this a good film (I will say film) is that it's informed by the English spirit of muddling through, of not expecting too much, but there's an underlying moral sense.
Muddling through, or making do: I thought also of the mood of the once-Number One video in England, `Withnail and I': it's always rainy and things are always running out.There are a lot of scenes and little reversals of fortune and through them all Friel and Williams remain excellent, Friel as Marina changing costumes like some mod master of disguise, while the soft, slightly plain, but actually quite lovely Williams as Holly carries the film.
The highly saturated color of the film makes her skin look ravishing: she becomes not just an English girl but an understated English beauty who doesn't need Marina's trendy, tarted up costumes and face to be splendid looking.What makes the film worthwhile and interesting is how well the two characters are written.
Undoubtedly, her quiet and reserved way of playing Holly has found itself into the hearts of many, especially with her desperate yearning for Nat.To term this epic a 'chick flick' is certainly doing it and its actors great injustice.
Me Without You is about two best friends, Holly and Marina growing up in London in the 1970's, 1980's, 1990's and of course we see what they're up to in 2001.
Michelle Williams (With a British accent.) and Anna Friel (Ex soap star.) both star here and they both good performances as does most of the rest of the cast here.
I'm not usually into British films, but this one is good, even if it is different to what I'd expected.
I really liked all the Jewish scenes in the movie too, especially with Holly being Jewish, as I'm Jewish too.
I think this movie completely captures that.The relationship between Holly and Nat is probably the biggest reason I love this film.
I think I cried about 3/4 of this movie the first time I saw it.Call it a chick flick if you want, but categorize it at the top of that genre, if you do.Superb acting and directing..
I chanced upon the movie while casually flicking and was absorbed immediately with the quiet, understated acting of Michelle Williams.
There were boys, jealousy, love and hate...and still it's all about these two girls - Holly and Marina.
It's not love and it's not friendship either and it's not that we really want them to leave (?)...it is some kind of bond between people...as the Marina says "There's no me without you".
I liked the love story between Williams and Milburn's character.
Though I do admire the scope this film aims for- which should have been on a scale of TV-show 'Our Friends in the North'- i.e. hours of TV.The film has a pretty great soundtrack- Cabaret Voltaire, The Normal, Only Ones, Scritti Politti and good performances from Anna Friel and Kyle Maclachlan.
There is a terrible postmodern line spoken by Williams character to Maclachlan's on Tarkovsky- in 1982 sher states "My favourite is 'Nostalgia' "- released in 1983: the postmodern loop of nostalgia...I do think this film says a lot about friendship and the passage of time- for that reason alone it will find a receptive audience in the future (I had some 'Speak,Memory' moments...)The end of the film is quite unsatisfactory- Friel's character being quite irritating and the will they/won't they?
The final scene is rubbish- daughters who we have never seen before are meant to reference the circular nature of 'growing up' as typified by the opening scenes of Friel/Williams as young girls playing in the garden?I think this film captures that English suburban thing well- more 'Lawn Dogs' or 'Secrets & Lies' than 'American Beauty'- and I don't think it is close to 'Mina Tannenbaum'.
Despite its flaws, it's much closer to where British film should be than dross like 'Snatch' and a nice feminine companion to '24 Hour Party People'.
At the end of the day though, this theme has been done much better in films like 'Beautiful Girls',I Vitteloni', 'Jules et Jim'& 'Summer with Monika'- which if you like this, I urge you to see..
Like many of the films i love (the godfather, almost famous) it spans over more than one decade and perfectly depicts the ups and downs of friend ships.
Both actresses were really fantastic and their chemistry was electrifying, Williams, as Holly, was a well rounded performance and although Friel as Marina did not have the same scenes to work from she also shone.
Secondly, whilst i believed totally in the relationship between Holly and Marina, the addition of Nat brought much confusion.
Whilst we could see the Ho9lly and Nat were together, it wasn't the important aspect of the film, as Holly letting herself be with Nat was an important element in her friendship with Marina.Sorry to write such an essay but i loved this film and was so disappointed with the ending- it was a very good film and i advise anyone to see it, but it also had the potential to be a fantastic film..
One of the few films that takes a look at women's friendships without descending into cliche or mawkishness.
'Me Without You' is an account of over twenty years of a tempestuous friendship between two middle class women; reminiscent of Mike Leigh's 'Career Girls' in structure, although the role of sexual jealousy and manipulation in their relationship reminds one more of elements of 'American Beauty'.
As in that film, the truthfulness of the representation is somewhat compromised by the casting of a very attractive actress (here the American Michelle Williams, who's nice to look at though her accent sometimes slips) as the supposedly plain friend; but the period references are not overplayed, the atmosphere convinces throughout, and first flowering of teenage sexuality is deftly and enjoyable portrayed.
Williams and co-star Anna Friel enjoy a natural camaraderie as teenagers then students, but possibly the film should have been made as a shorter drama: there's a natural plot-end about two-thirds of the way through, and the final portion of the story feels more constructed, as if designed to make a full length feature from a shorter tale.
Such is the case of Holly (Michelle Williams), a bookish and sweetly obedient girl and Marina (Anna Friel), a wild child of an equally wild mom (Trudie Styler), who helps mold and shape the thinking of her more reserved neighbor.
Add in Holly's crush on Marina's brother (Oliver Millburn), toss in some drugs, cigarettes, and a college professor (Kyle MacLachlan) when they go off to University and you have a brilliant character study, set against the New Wave 80s, and into the 90s.Holly must deal with control issues from all around her: first her stodgy parents, then dodgy Marina, who has her own agenda, even as she is trying to sabotage Holly's.It's a taut, real story, with authentic performances straight through.
Especially when your best friend is a pain in the arse.This humourless, tedious affair has angst-ridden best friends Anna Friel and Michelle Williams growing up (or maybe not) and competing to see who can be the most miserable and self-absorbed sod on the planet.In a vain attempt to hold the attention of any blokes unlucky enough to have to sit through this yawnsome bilge, both actresses expose their breasts a few times.
The film only seems to get interesting when it gets away from the girls friendship and focuses on the other characters.
It is amusing how in these films girls that are portrayed as 'plain janes' are still superior looking than the average women in real life.
In 1973, Holly and Marina are best friend neighbors.
In 1978, Holly (Michelle Williams) and Marina (Anna Friel) are desperate to grow up.
In 1989, Holly is a struggling writer living at home and dating Carl who is a close friend of Marina.
If you love stories about the relationship between women, this movie will satisfy you in many ways.
Were do you think in the film the conflict between Holly and Marina escalates?
A lot was predictable and the destructive nature of Marina and the nasty way she thwarted Holly's potential relationship with Nat was hardly the actions of a best friend.
"Me Without You" traces the lives and loves of two females (Friel & Williams) through 2-3 decades beginning in their teens.
Otherwise, "Me Without You" is just an okay flick about the coming-of-age of two angst-ridden girls (Friel & Williams) over a decade or so exploring the usual female stuff...yada, yada, yada.
I rented it not knowing anything about it and was pleased to find that it was one of the best coming-of-age movies I had seen in a long time.I am a big fan of movies that take place either in one solid work day (like Clerks) or movies, like ME WITHOUT YOU, that take place over several years -- specifically those childhood to adult years.ME WITHOUT YOU focuses on the story of two white girls growing up in 1980's New Wave/Punk-influenced London suburbs.
This film is great if you like coming of age films; films set in the 80's; films with punk & new wave references, subcultural moments, and soundtrack; films set in England; & films with cute girls...This is a good movie for people who like coming-of-age flicks with girls as the main characters..
Their lives completely entwined by the time they realize that their differences are often unbearable irritants, the two eventually reach a kind of strained truce.The story is a distinctly female one; men are far less likely to have such long-term or intimate friendships, and not at all likely to remain friends with someone after betrayals and unrestrained confrontation.
This 2001 film from British director Sandra Goldbacher is a coming-of-age story about intense female teenage bonds and what happens to them on the road to adulthood.
Marina (a splendid Anna Friel) and Holly (Michelle Williams) are in young years already fervently loyal best friends who live next door to each other.
Perhaps as a reaction to this over-intensity and partly due to different parental backgrounds, their personalities develop into near opposites: Marina is a self-consciously wild party-girl and eclectic dresser who dabbles with heroin and casual sex, whilst Holly is a Sylvia Plath reading intellectual, a steadier, introverted being who feels mousy and unsexy (her domineering mother is shown telling her "There are pretty people, and there are clever people," as if the two were mutually exclusive).
The soundtrack also comes across as a little 'stuck on' and predictable: a Joy Division poster hangs on the wall, records of The Clash, Adam Ant and Depeche Mode spin on the turntables and an attempted suicide (by Marina's mother, deftly performed by Trudie Styler) is accompanied by the music of Nick Drake, himself a famous suicide.It's nevertheless worth watching, especially for those who feel nostalgic for 1970s and 1980s fashion and music and for those who have experienced a close, deep friendship drifting into a stifling and over-dependent osmosis.Also recommended: My Summer of Love, The Page Turner, Look at Me (2005), Gespenster (a German film).
This is one of those movies where it's supposed to be like real life, where stuff just sort of happens without the artifice of plot moving things toward a conclusion, and it's a good example of both the strengths and weaknesses of that style.Me Without You is about two girls who live next door to each other in England.
Holly (Michelle Williams) is the intellectual one and Marina (Anna Friel) is the wild one.
It follows their lives from being children in 1973 to grown women in 2001 and how their close friendship degenerates into disturbing co-dependency.The best things about this film are its smart observations of the rising and falling tides of life and how it lets the performers stretch themselves in the moment.
And as young adults, it is Holly who's stuck in a rut while Marina's life is moving forward.
Without having to service a plot, the characters can develop an organic sense of realism.But the real life stylings of the story also hamper the film.
In this movie, it comes as it shifts from Holly and Marina as college students to adults.The film is able to rely on the natural events of growth and development from childhood to young adulthood to give the story some structure.
In Me Without You, that results in the film having to introduce a bunch of really arbitrary elements to Holly and Marina's lives, things that don't naturally flow from what we've seen of the characters up until then.Another interesting thing about this film is how it demonstrates the difference between movie nudity in the American and British cinema.
Whether that's a more enlightened approach to movie nudity is up to each viewer to decide for themselves.Me Without You is one of those films that you'll enjoy if you buy into the characters and become invested in how their lives turn out.
Reading the plot description, I was hoping for the film to dive deep into the chaos that can be female friendships, but instead, I found a film too caught up in romantic subplots to really achieve this goal that it clearly aspires to.The film concerns Marina and Holly, two girls who grow up as neighbors and best friends.
The film's episodic structure is separated into five different periods of the women's lives: childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, adult independence, and finally, motherhood.
In the early periods, the two girls are inextricably bound, but their relationship suffers as a result of the insecurities of both characters leading to a power struggle between the friends.Marina, the more outspoken and wild of the two, makes a strong first impression, but soon, it becomes clear that her dramatic exterior masks a weak identity.
A whole movie could be written about the fallout of the break, and yet, the filmmakers leave it almost entirely up to the imagination.Thanks to great performances, good subject-matter, and interesting cinematography, the film isn't a complete wash.