Smalltown America goes slightly barmy

Film-maker Miranda July's strange debut, which comes laden with prizes, attempts to create a meaningful microcosm in an average small American town. It is, says the director, about "togetherness".

If you don't like the sound of that very American concept, don't come near this one - though, it does take the kind of risks expected of an audaciously original independent movie.

An over-imaginative shoe salesman (John Hawkes), deserted by his wife and looking after two boys, panics when an attractive artist and parttime cab driver (July) waltzes into his life.

His seven-year-old has a vaguely randy relationship with someone on the internet and his 14-year-old allows two neighbourhood girls to practise fellatio on him; they are also in a battle with the man next door, who responds to their taunts by posting filthy messages to them in his window.

It might sound as though it has something in common with Todd Solondtz's brilliantly ironic Happiness, but July is a much gentler talent, allowing a hazy kind of suburban poetry to suffuse the screen to a sweet soundtrack.

Sometimes it's all irritatingly fey, as if the director has gone ever so slightly barmy, like her characters, but, thanks largely to the performances of the children (Brandon Ratcliff and Miles Thompson), it's quite affecting, too. Everyone, July clearly believes, is on their own in this life.

Me And You And Everyone We Know
Cert: 15