For a while it seemed like we all knew what to expect from Michel Gondry, the visually inventive director behind Human Nature, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep. He made visually lush, narratively oddball stories, often scripted by Charlie Kaufman, and seemed to take dreams and fantasies and treat them like dead-serious parts of real life. But then he made the low-key Be Kind Rewind, a flawed film but a charming little story about a neighborhood coming together through filmmaking. Then he made the even tinier The Thorn in the Heart, a documentary about his aunt. By the time he signed on to Sony's superhero effort The Green Hornet, it seemed clear Gondry was following no compass but his own-- and your mileage may vary, but I find that way more interesting than him trying to repeat Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind over and over again.
Which brings us to The We and the I, Gondry's next film which he described to us back in 2010 as being about "the phenomenon of people, how different they are in groups and large numbers, and how they become more interesting and complex when they are in smaller groups." If that sounds awfully heady, it becomes a lot clearer in the new trailer, which has emerged online via Bleeding Cool. To put it much more simply, it's about a group of kids in the Bronx riding the bus home from school. Take a look below.
If you're one of the few people who saw Be Kind Rewind, the groups of boisterous kids living in a major American city will feel familiar and encouraging-- Gondry, despite being French and white, did a really good job capturing the dynamic between young, black, American kids in that movie. And this one seems to continue that trend, with the added promise of some headier, Gondry-style antics maybe lurking somewhere in the corners. After all, an earlier synopsis suggested the kids on the bus would discover "a machine that keeps people younger." Is that plot still part of the movie? The trailer gives no indication, but with Gondry, you really never know.
There's no release date scheduled just yet for The We and the I, and you can probably count on it being pretty limited. But we'll keep you posted as soon as we hear anything about when we can get a look at this ourselves.
