WENDY AND LUCY Review
For director/writer Kelly Reichardt, life operates on a strange wavelength: while the world is filled with so much beauty and freedom, tragedies both big and small seemingly wait around every corner. While the tragedies that happen upon a caravan of settlers in her own unique take on the western film, MEEK’S CUTOFF, are par for the course for an epic conquest such as theirs, the tragedies in WENDY AND LUCY, a slow burn spiral in the most mundane of suburbs, are simple problems that Reichardt frames as a series of devastating blows that form into a quietly brutal portrait of life at the fringes of American society.
On those fringes, Wendy (Michelle Williams) and her dog Lucy (Lucy the Dog) wander together. From the opening frame, with the soft breeze of the woods surrounding them and the softness of Wendy’s humming providing the film’s natural soundtrack, Reichardt naturalistically follows this woman and her dog as they quietly stroll across America. We don’t know where they are going at this time but the two wanderers, particularly the young woman, have a goal in mind: Alaska, which holds promise of a job that she seems to be lacking at the moment. As the film moves on, Reichardt slowly fills in a few more pieces of Wendy’s history but even with those glimpses the character is just as fleeting as her journeys through the various parking lots and small towns she and her dog take shelter in. With only a finite amount of money and a car that will only take them as far as it wants to, Wendy and Lucy are at the mercy of luck and soon their luck begins to tragically run thin.
Like her other works, the much grander (at least for a Reichardt film) MEEK’S CUTOFF included, Reichardt once again creates an impeccable sense of place in the suffocating ordinary-ness of her Oregonian setting. Filmed with invigorating naturalness by cinematographer Sam Levy, who basks in the natural lighting offered by the Oregon days and nights, WENDY AND LUCY is almost documentary-like in its depiction of life on the road. With this feeling in hand, Reichardt and her co-writer Jonathan Raymond allow their relatively simple tale to take on a much more existentially despairing atmosphere as Wendy’s relatively minor problems (a broken down car, a lost dog, low cash) inevitably build up to a conclusion that in any other situation would be less than ideal, but for Wendy’s low end lifestyle, prove catastrophic. In their greatest moments, if one could call them that, Reichardt and Raymond effectively make even the smallest moments of “drama” burn with a surprising amount of unsettled tension as Wendy’s constantly increasing problems and money issues build up. Even the smaller moments, such as various scenes where Wendy takes the bus, operate with such a specific kind of lowly dread (e.g. not having enough money even for a bus ride) that WENDY AND LUCY makes for surprisingly tense viewing.
But tension isn’t at the heart of this movie, what stands out by the time Reichardt’s film comes to a close is the sad reality that exists for some in the United States. Wendy’s life before we find her never materializes enough for us to know just why she is in her certain situation but the reality of people living on the fringes, whether by choice or not, still proves to be a tough one especially for a lone woman, dog or not. As showcased in what is the film’s true “horror” moment, Wendy, alone in the dark forests of a nearby town is harassed by a random wanderer such as herself, played with scratchy maliciousness by Larry Fessenden (the king of those performances). Almost entirely filmed in darkness, with just the slight flame of the fire illuminating Williams’ distraught face and Fessenden’s snarls, Reichardt never shies away from the terrors of a life like this and even more upsettingly proves that incidents like this are just elevated moments of the other smaller everyday terrors that threaten to derail Wendy’s life.
At the center of all this, Ms. Williams, an actor who thrives on finding emotional wells within the smallest of moments, once again thrives in the small-ness of Reichardt’s true world. While dialogue is sparse for our main character, the emotions that slowly build towards a truly heartbreaking release are poignantly delivered by Williams with such natural ease that one could easily be mistaken for believing the filmmakers just plucked her from some uneventful sideroads of some small town. Indeed, most of the supporting characters, who usually only stick around for a scene or two, are also performed with such naturalness that WENDY AND LUCY achieves, if nothing else, the feeling of watching something that feels 100% real.
As it is, WENDY AND LUCY isn’t much of a happy watch but it is an involving one. While one could easily find themselves bored with Reichardt’s predilection towards having her stories develop at their own natural pace (which are usually at a glacier’s pace), the filmmaker nonetheless makes the plight of a poor woman and her dog carry an air of dramatic importance and memorability. Truly, for Reichardt as a filmmaker, success isn’t found on a larger canvas but something much smaller and as a result, more personable.
3.5/5
