Coming-of-Age Films I Think About a Lot

'Films I think about a lot' by Dear City Girl on Substack

Me Without You

(2001) directed by Sandra Goldbacher starring Michelle Williams, Anna Friel, Kyle Maclachlan

Nothing is ever more complicated than the relationship between two women. I watched this when I had a sick day from school. It was on some random channel that showed mostly independent films, back when it was included with the other 30 cable channels. I said, ‘hey it’s that girl from Dawson’s Creek, with an okay British accent.’ This film changed me somewhat in that it has influenced my writing through the years. This is the film that decided it for me, exploring the not so trivial conflicts and mechanics within female friendships and relationships. Me Without You is a coming-of-age about a toxic friendship of two childhood friends that lasts all the way into adulthood. We travel through their generational traumas that explain the narratives within one another’s personas. Holly (Michelle Williams) was raised by very normal, supportive, caring parents. Marina (Anna Friel - who btw played Marcella, a British crime-thriller series worthy of a binge on Netflix) lives in a haphazard house with a mother who is more obsessed with her own looks than what her daughter is getting herself into. The only valuable person in Marina’s family is her older brother Nat, who Holly has been secretly in love with. Their story takes place in the mid to late 1970s England, right at the birth of punk rock. Marina’s hopes are to hang out with The Clash by way of her brother Nat and his friends, dragging Holly with her to parties where drugs and promiscuous sex takes place.

Holly is a literature nerd and aspiring writer and that scene doesn’t fit her, but she tags along in hopes of being near Nat, whom she loses her virginity to. Finding this out, Marina is boiled over and I think this is where the tension and true resentment between these two best friends start — she doesn’t want Holly to have the one thing that means the world to her. Because Holly already has everything in Marina’s eyes – the loving parents, the home cooked meals, the safe environment that she never got to have. Jealousy is the toxicity that ruins their friendship over and over again even though they’ll semi-reconcile in between dramatic feuds and ghosting each other for months or years.

How it ends is very realistic, because nothing is sugar coated. When women despise or covet something from another woman, it is unfixable. A woman is so quick to change her ways for a man, but barely considers it to earn the respect from a woman. It’s been years since I’ve rewatched this film, but it is constantly playing out in my mind when I’m stuck writing a female character. I go back and forth with Holly or Marina to inspire character arcs.