Quintessential: "ARE YOU THE FAVORITE PERSON OF ANYBODY"

Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody
Directed by Miguel Arteta,Written by Miranda July USA, 4 minutes
Original Link to this post is Here

This film is a about a man (John C. Reilly) who is standing on the street waiting for people to walk by. He is not an innocent bystander, but a man geared with paper and pencil and looking for answers in life--in this case, specifically the answers to the question "Are you anybody's favorite person?" Though we are given little character development as far as why the man is standing on the street waiting for strangers to walk by and take his survey, we learn a lot about the man's personality through his reactions to people's responses.

We are introduced to three strangers, each different in both their sex, race, and comprehension of the question. The first stranger is a woman (the film's writer, Miranda July). She hesitates to answer the question, but due to vanity, she immediately finds an answer when she gazes at the man's mildly judging look. The second stranger to walk past is a man (Mike White), who, when bombarded by the question, answers immediately with a 'no'. After further questioning, the male stranger holds firmly to his beliefs that no one considers him their favorite person and, in return, receives three oranges from Reilly's character. It is at this point that we learn more about Reilly's character--that he has a wife, owns three fertile orange trees, and that he is sympathetic towards others. The third and final stranger to pass by is an immigrant man (Chuy Chavez) who does not have any interest in taking the survey, believing it to be a political vote. This passing character is important to the story line because he questions Reilly's character's existence. As Reilly's character tries to explain to the man that it is not an election vote, he exclaims, "No, that's not what it is about", to which the stranger replies "Yeah, but I don't want to be involved with this, sorry". What is this film about? And should we as viewers be involved? The film successfully makes us want to answer the man's question. Does someone favor me above all others?

I think the setting of this film is very important to the story. As Tyler mentions in his original post, this film is "an experiment in psychology", as the question the man poses is not an everyday question and might be right up there with "Why are we here?" That said, the street is an interesting location for the man to choose as his questioning location. Besides for the three strangers we meet, the street is empty and can be compared to a black hole. When we are introduced to Reilly's character, we see the street in the direction left of him, where all of the strangers enter from. We never see the direction the characters take, and the film just ends with the Reilly's character looking down the street in the direction the strangers head after they answer or block his questions. In many ways, the man's question is impossible to answer, and by not showing the street, we do not know where the characters are coming from or going to, just that they exist.

Although this film amazingly tells a story just by the responses of individuals, we still do not understand why Reilly's character is asking these questions, nor why he is standing in the street wearing a nice suit. We get the impression that he is a working man, who might possibly be in a midlife crisis--is he his wife's favorite person?--but we do not know why he has chosen this street or how far away he lives. His questions leave us wanting more answers. Because we learn a lot about his character through his interactions with the strangers, as well as learn about character traits of the three strangers through their responses, I wonder if a fifth character would provide more character development. The three strangers are all assured in their responses, whether it be 'yes', 'no', or 'I don't want any part in this'. It would be interesting to see a character who answers with an 'I don't know. How can one tell?' It would turn the table on Reilly's character.