Wendy and Lucy

Kelly Reichardt directed this 2008 film starring Michelle Williams. She has a stark style to her that likes to exhibit something obvious that's been laden in repurposing additions. For example, in her film, MEEK'S CUTOFF she shows a group of travelers who starve to death on the Oregon trail. We have all been so conditioned with visions of attacking indians, however, that the true and most dangerous aspect of these journeys were lost. It is the same with WENDY AND LUCY, which simply tells of a woman who is "just passing through" a small Oregon town with her dog, Lucy. The woman, Wendy, is played by Michelle Williams, who is the only big name in the film, and without much plot in the film, Williams is able to perfectly evoke the depressing woman. For, as we watch Wendy get out of her old clunker, sleep in the car, and pick up bottles to turn in, there's a timely figure of the broken American that Reichardt evokes. The town is shot in such a way that we see an emphasis on the streets, gates, stores, and we feel as if the town exists only outside of these houses where, of course, Wendy is doomed to loom. We learn little about her past, and prospected future, but that's okay because Wendy seems too hopeless to have any sort of "american dream" that populates so many depressing, but family oriented films in the 21st century especially. Reichardt also deftly shows Wendy to be not unlike many of us, as she is afraid of her fellow homeless. The only plot point Reichardt puts into the story is that Wendy loses her dog. The circumstances around this loss are finely realistic, and will remain unspoiled in this review. She starts obsessing over her only friend in the world, and we follow her as she searches. A kind old man who must have been cast on location as he looks so authentically poor, helps Wendy out, perhaps if only because he isn't too far off from Wendy's situation. WENDY AND LUCY is perhaps too simplistic, but it gets many details right, and remains unostentatious while making its point (which is uncharacteristic of many indie films about the poor or hopeless). It is not as good as Reichardt's MEEK'S CUTOFF, but a solid introduction to her style, which hopefully will flourish past MEEK'S CUTOFF and develop into more complicated fare.
Wendy and Lucy: ★★★