If Holly (Michelle Williams) and Marina (Anna Friel) had just slept with each other and gotten it over with, we’d all have been a whole lot better off. True, this may just partly be my pathetic desire to see a hot lesbian sex scene or two, but still…
Instead, director Sandra Goldbacher has Holly, at least, grow out of such promising, if innocent, desires for her best friend, choosing instead to lavish her attentions on Marina’s roguish brother Nat (Oliver Milburn). Or at least that’s where her true affections lie, except that she’s apparently afflicted with a seemingly perpetual case of bad timing. Seems that either Holly’s in another relationship or Nat is. Nor do they get any help from Marina, who’s either busy chasing after whatever man Holly has, such as in the case of their scummy professor Daniel (Kyle MacLachlan), or brooding about her own unrequited love for her best friend.
Oh, so much English angst, so little time. And one will have even less patience for this ponderous, plodding soap opera disguised as a feature film. Yes, it’s mildly amusing to hear the music from the 1980s and, even more so, to take another gander at the period wardrobe. But that’s not enough to hold the audience’s interest, especially with such shallow simpletons as these two women in the leads.
“Me Without You” tries mightily if unsuccessfully to engage us in an exploration of a true friendship’s depth and changing nature throughout the years. To be fair, this just might be an example of one of those films that women relate to better than us guys.
We just wish they’d gotten nekkid.
