Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody?

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Do you remember back when it was likely that none of your friends had seen your favorite short film? Even deep into the YouTube era, it was unlikely that you would get to share with someone your love of “Rejected“ or “Six Shooter“ or “Peluca“ unless they had the same obscure (possibly semi-legal) dvd (or, a few years earlier, when it was, say, Bill Plympton, vhs). Those movies weren’t even old. Just . . . how were you supposed to watch them?

All of which is to say, hallelujah, you can go to YouTube right now and watch “Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody” in the way we couldn’t’ve when it was filmed. So do it. Please. Even though the quality is, as the kids say, mid.

Did you notice how it’s basically in realtime? Pretty neat.

Anyway, I love this movie. I think about it pretty regularly. It’s simple. It’s provocative. “Provocative” in the sense that it “provokes” you to think. I should know. I’ve shown it to hundreds of students. It’s provocative.

And it’s about heartbreak. Which is what we’re about this month, right?

Let’s talk about the characters in this film. I’ll refer to them by actor’s name since the characters don’t get names. And we’ll discuss how each one shows off a different kind of heartbreakage.

You’ve watched the movie by now, right?

Okay. Let’s go.

 

MIRANDA JULY

Miranda July wrote this film while shooting Me and You and Everyone We Know, and when there was a break in the action on that set, she took a few people to spend, I don’t know, an hour? to shoot this.¹ She also plays the person to first take the survey.

The question throws her at first, but once she has an answer, she’s delighted to share it: “I am,” she says, as bold as Jehovah himself. And whose favorite person is she? Her ex-girlfriend’s. Miranda’s so happy! She’s “very confident”!

Until that very confidence is questioned, and eventually downgraded to “You think so.” Which she then gives a cheerful “Yeah!” to but, as she walks away, arms crossed, she’s no long the proud god of favorites proclaiming I AM. She’s merely someone who thinks so. Time has passed. Love has become exlove. And if she is her ex’s favorite person, how long can it possibly last?

Miranda shows us that the intimacy of being favorite is fleeting. And possibly never even was, outside of our own ego.

 

MIKE WHITE

Mike White has such a distinctive voice. If he was a radio man, doing guest stints on The Baby Snooks Show and Fibber McGee and Molly, I’m not sure we could know it any better. At this point, I’d only seen him in School of Rock and Orange County,² but I knew his weary eyes and crackling voice. Something about that voice of his is just so vulnerable. Hopeful and hopeless, all at once. And when he takes off his chunky headphones to answer this question—

Incidentally, Mike White is not credited as having done anything for Me and You and Everyone We Know. Which feels appropriate.

Mike, like Miranda, has someone in his life that could be called “girlfriend.” No ex prefix for him, but he is very certain that he is no one’s—including his girlfriend’s—favorite person. The surveyor cannot dissuade him from certainty. No matter how worriedly he doublechecks.

Now, as he told Miranda, “some very prominent people are not anyone’s favorite,” but someone as vulnerable-voiced as Mike White being satisfied with not being anyone’s favorite person breaks our hearts, and we have to believe his must break as well. Don’t let us be sad for you, Mike! Sure, maybe she’s really close to her mother, but you might be her favorite! Ask her! and if not today, surely someday!

There’s something about taking breakfast fruit for your girlfriend that makes us imagine their relationship is far enough along they live together, they serious conversations about the future, they are . . . each other’s favorite person.

But he’s not her favorite. And even if he really truly is okay with that, our heart breaks for him. Because, me and you, we do not want that for ourselves.

 

CHUY CHÁVEZ

Chuy Chávez was Me and You and Everyone You Know’s cinematographer; he hasn’t done a lot of acting (and he’s directed photography on every movie he’s acted in). Based on his bag’s nicely padded shoulder strap, he may be off to take direct some photography right now. And he doesn’t have time for this nonsense. Even if he’s not sure what sort of nonsense it is. Yes, he doesn’t quite understand and, no, he’s not about to take the time to understand. This is not his native culture and trying to figure out the angle of this weird guy standing there, holding papers, asking random questions? Not worth it.

Chuy’s a guy who’s been put in awkward situation after awkward situation, perhaps for his entire American life. Even if you seem nice, he can’t take the chance. He’s been burned before.

 

JOHN C. REILLY

Who is this guy?³ What does he want? Why is he asking this question? Is he his wife’s favorite person? Is she his? He’s standing on a narrow residential street. Not the best place to ask as many people as possible (though pedestrians do keep walking past, perfectly spaced, three per four minutes). At film’s end, the way he looks off. . . . What the heck is he doing? What is he hoping for? What’s it all about?

This survey is not scientifically built. This is not how it’s done. The guy’s an amateur. Both in the nonprofessional sense but also, maybe, in the just-for-the-love-of-it sense. He just wants to know. Why he wants to know or, once he does know, what he’ll do with his results are impossible to discern. He watches Chuy walk off and, what? What then? I suppose he’ll wait for someone else.

He only gives oranges to the fellow who is confident he is no one’s favorite. Take three. You’d be doing us a favor. But what is he doing? What is he hoping to accomplish? Does he have any purpose in this world? What meaning does he hope this stupid quest will provide him? Couldn’t he get more joy just giving oranges to strangers? Do gifted oranges become any more significant when you give them to the unfavorited? Is this supposed to be making you happy, John? Are you delusional?

 

YOU, THE VIEWER

As I mentioned up-top, I’ve shows this film to hundreds of students. Sometimes I let them talk to their neighbors about it. Sometimes we talk about it as a class. Sometimes I ask them to write about it. Or perhaps about their own favorite person. Or whether they are anyone’s favorite person. Or whether that matters. Or what it means about yourself, to be confident that you are (or are not).

Those latter questions are, perhaps, unkind to spring on teenagers. They’re upset enough about poor Mike White who is not his girlfriend’s favorite person (my comment about her mother makes sense to them but is not comforting). It’s so much easier to feel for Mike, than to look inward. It’s easier to grapple with whether it’s okay to laugh at Miranda. Or to sympathize with Chuy. Or wonder what John’s deal is. Than to look at your own relationships and wonder if it’s okay, today, to (perhaps) not be the favorite person of anyone.

So is this our goal in life? Just to be someone else’s favorite? And if so, what if we fail? Or what if they move on to another favorite? Who am I if I am not your favorite person? What’s it all about?

Do you want an orange?

 

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[1] Dir. Miguel Arteta, who gets a “very special thinks” in the concurrent feature’s credits.

[2] Well, and Swingers, but I think we could survey you and me and everyone we know without finding a single person who remembers seeing him in Swingers.

[3] He’s not in Me and You, I can tell you that much.