Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

d_m_s I was really hoping to like this after reading the blurb on the back then checking out some of the IMDb reviews but I was very disappointed.The film is a bit of a confused mess, is badly acted, badly written and very clunky. It lacks any sophistication or subtlety and we are just subjected to scene after annoying scene of the two 'friends' constantly bickering and falling out. I was hoping for a fun British indie but got a depressing, miserable hack of a film.The main plot it just the two girls doing not much at all other than getting on each other's nerves. The sub plots are weak and annoying and usually involve secondary characters coming and going randomly and causing a bit of uninteresting melodrama.The film does not know what it wants to be or what it wants to say or what it's really about and this lack of direction and confusion comes out in every aspect of the production, making it a difficult, dull and annoying watch. Shame.

paul2001sw-1 '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. I still enjoyed it, if only as a taste of a youth I never quite had myself.

DeanNYC When you live in a suburb of London, in the mid 1970s, your best friend is whomever lives nearby. 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. The questions it raises about what friends do for and to each other are explored, and the dynamic of who "runs" a relationship is a key element to the tale, just as much as the fantastic soundtrack of 1980s Punk and Brit Rock music.

George Parker "Me Without You" traces the lives and loves of two females (Friel & Williams) through 2-3 decades beginning in their teens. The girls are a study in contrasts. One's Jewish, the other gentile. One is cerebral, the other visceral. One is extroverted, the other introverted. One is the kind you take home to mommy, the other the kind you take home to daddy....etc. With no real plot, the film simply travels through time hitting all the obligatory benchmarks....first smoke, drink, drugs; first sex, love, breakup; first college course, job; etc. "Me Without You" will appeal most to those who can buy into the obviously manufactured characters and their seemingly endless growing pains. Can you say "chick flick"? (C+)