I first came across her when I was searching for her book titled "No One Belongs Here More Than You" which was so famous around tumblr world, being featured in a lot of photos because of the provoking title and the simple cover design. When I tried to searched that book, I found the website, which is unusually cool. Then I found out about her quirky movie, Me and You and Everyone We Know, which she wrote, directed, and acted.
The movie itself tells stories about people trying to connect with each other in an isolating and contemporary world. It consists of several subplots which connect to each others by the intertwined characters. Miranda played Christine, a lonely struggling artist trying to make her way through. John Hawkes played Robert, a guy with two kids, just separated from his wife. Now all the characters were portrayed strongly and easy to get into but Hawkes' character somehow left more impression than the other. He might not appear as sane and as strong as a man should be, he doesn't embody a greatness physicality, nor showing financial stability, yet there's something that drew me to his character, which I don't know what, most probably his vulnerability and his compassion shown specially to his kids.
Miranda won the Camera d'Or at Cannes Film Festival for this, and the famous Roger Ebert listed it as the fifth best film of the decade, mentioning my favorite scene:
Imagine Christine and Richard as they walk down the street. Still strangers she suggests that the block they are walking down is their lives. And now, she says, they're halfway down the street and halfway through their lives. Before long they will be at the end. It's impossible to suggest how poetic this scene is; when it's over, you think, that was a perfect scene, and no other scene can ever be like it. And we are all on the sidewalk. July's film fits no genre, fulfills no expectations, creates its own rules, and seeks only to share a strange, lovable mind with us.
ps. Miranda's quirky front page of her website. And The Future, her other movie, which sounds interesting.
