After seeing Jim McKay's "Girls Town" and "Our Song" (both shot VERY cheaply on video), I was totally unprepared for the beauty of EVERYDAY PEOPLE. It's gorgeously shot and edited and looks like a million bucks. Considering that it's mostly about a depressed Brooklyn neighborhood, this is all the more amazing. Whether this is due to the cinematographer, to McKay's direction, or just--at last--a bigger budget via HBO, I don't know. But congrats to all concerned. The movie itself is as wonderful as anything McKay has yet done. A famous Brooklyn eating hole looks like it's going out of business to make way for gentrification, and we viewers get to meet and spend some time with the owners and waiters, their relatives and friends, and even some of the "gentrifiers." The mix is bracing. Nobody ends up hero or villain, and if the movie never reaches the heights of great tragedy, comedy or romance, it also never overdoes anything. Scenes last only as long as they need to, each performance is real and exact, and by the end I'll bet you'll have chuckled often, (almost) shed a tear or two, and certainly better understood what a changing neighborhood means to a host of different people. As simple as "Everyday People" appears to be, this kind of ensemble of people and social issues is not easy to pull off without undue soapboxing. But McKay, his cast and his crew have done it. (And Billoah Greene, who plays Samel, should be going places, FAST!)
