French filmmaker Michel Gondry (“The Green Hornet”) spent a lot of time with Bronx high school students, co-wrote with two partners a slice-of-life script for them that took into account their real personalities and had them act it all out in “The We and the I,” which takes place almost entirely on a city Bx66 bus after the last day of school.
Fake documentaries annoy me — why not put in the effort and deliver the real thing? — and this one is not only aimless and stiff, it also rings false. I’m finding it a little hard to believe that an old lady in contemporary New York would shout out that her bus, full of members of minorities, consisted of “apes from Africa,” or that a 180-pound high school student would cower and run away if she attacked him with a stick.
Gondry’s evident fondness for the kids is sweet, though. The students are seen ebulliently chatting about TV shows, flirting and innocently teasing and playing pranks on one another. I have no idea what Bronx high school students are like, but I doubt they’re as dull as Gondry would have us believe. I suspect the kids themselves could have made a more interesting film.