The We And The I

Midway through the high-concept experimental drama The We And The I, two gay teenagers on a bus together have a raw, painful, relationship-redefining fight that leaves them both in tears. It’s a rivetingly intense moment, but it comes with a number of problems: It doesn’t make sense within the narrative, and it emerges from nowhere and dissolves into nothing. That’s because it’s an actual fight director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Be Kind Rewind) captured between two of the teenagers who brainstormed and starred in the film as part of an afterschool arts program. As Gondry explained in a Film Comment interview, the two boys (Brandon Diaz and Luis Figueroa) were recreating their real-life relationship from two years previous, but playing each other in the film, to ease their tension and discomfort. Then Diaz broke down and admitted his real feelings to Figueroa—but as himself, rather than as his “Luis” character. So to work the scene into the film, Gondry inserted an earlier scene where one of the boys explains that they’re role-playing as each other as an empathy exercise. The wheels within wheels are dizzying and not particularly convincing—certainly not as convincing as the fight itself. And the way the fight is included regardless of narrative sense highlights the problem with The We And The I: Gondry is focused more on moments than on the film as a whole.