Independent film director Kelly Reichardt is telling a simple story in Wendy And Lucy with deep implications.
A girl named Wendy (played with graceful complexity by Michelle Williams) is on the road in hopes of getting a good job up in Alaska. She brings her dog Lucy with her on the journey filled with nights sleeping in her car and refreshing in gas station bathrooms. However through a series of events and a broken-down car, Lucy goes missing and Wendy must use her wits and what little cash she has to get her back.
The film is so beautifully minimal it almost takes your breath away how bare and real everything feels. Reichardt said in an interview that they didn’t have money to close locations like big Hollywood films so the environments they were filming in did have a whirling sense of spontaneity and truth.
The film’s political subtext about economic hard times hits most poignantly when Wendy, asking to make change for a payphone, is offered a chance to use a security guard's cellphone while he says, “No one uses a payphone anymore.” Harsh words for a girl stuck in dire straits.
Wendy And Lucy is ultimately about the interaction between strangers and as Wendy makes her way in this small town, Reichardt and writing partner Jonathon Raymond explore all the subtle details to how we treat those fleeting bodies around us and how we deal with them once one makes contact.
A beautifully minimal movie, Wendy And Lucy hits harder than you think and Michelle Williams lucid and striking performance cements this as definitely the best independent movie this year proving you don’t need big bucks or special effects to strike a chord or lay reality bare.
trailer:
Link:
Wendy And Lucy on IMDB
