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Wendy and Lucy (2008)

Director: Kelly Reichardt

Time Out rating

Average user rating

16 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

‘If a person can’t afford dog food, then they shouldn’t have a dog,’ snaps a preppy store clerk to Wendy (Michelle Williams) after catching her stealing food for her beloved yellow-gold retriever, Lucy. The clerk’s sentiment captures the debate at the heart of this brilliant, desperately sad Steinbeckian fable from American director Kelly Reichardt. It’s Reichardt’s third full-length feature (‘Old Joy’ was in cinemas last year), but only her first masterpiece.

In the film’s opening seconds, Wendy and Lucy’s energising mutual dependence is writ large with a remarkable, inconspicuous tracking shot that captures the pair frolicking through a woodland glade, setting the perfect tone for the heartbreaking minimalist weepie that lies ahead. Wendy is our heroine, a waifish tomboy on a journey up north where she hopes to find work in an Alaskan fish cannery. She’s a whisker away from financial penury when her minutely orchestrated plans go seriously awry and she loses her adored mutt during a prolonged stopover in the sleepy mill town of Williamsville, Oregon. As the quest to recover Lucy takes up the bulk of the story, a threat of loneliness and destitution bubbles frenetically beneath its stoical façade. Reichardt is interested in exploring the domino effect of a plummet into insolvency and the idea that existing on meagre budgets calls for extreme prudence, prioritising and, often, sacrifice.

Stylistically uncomplicated and admirable in both its honesty and the terseness of its storytelling, the film manages that rare feat of being both remarkably prescient and modest at the same time. Steering clear of the lefty sermonising that crept into ‘Old Joy’, Reichardt and co-writer Jon Raymond employ a sincere and discreet depiction of life on the fringe, be it through the kindly mutterings of a pension-age security guard (Wally Dalton), or the person of a small-time mechanic (Will Patton) who can’t cut Wendy a deal for her broken-down car without risking his quality of life.

The story, too, is never over-egged with superfluous plot, dialogue or imagery and every minutely judged frame oozes gently with detail and emotion.The feather-light enhancements that Reichardt does add via the photography (DoP Sam Levy’s elegant framing of Wendy in the deserted Northwestern streets) and sound design (the constant clatter and wail of passing trains which act as both a surrogate release for Wendy’s pent-up despair and a constant call for her to continue with her journey) work wonders in proliferating the hushed desperation on screen.

The film it most resembles is De Sica’s neo-realist landmark, ‘Umberto D’ (without the craven sentimentality and doggie anthropomorphism), but ‘Wendy and Lucy’ also contains thematic overlaps with many other great movies, such as the starkness and instability of communal life in Altman’s ‘McCabe and Mrs Miller’, the muted despair in the Dardennes’s ‘Rosetta’ and the austere, heart-wrenching poetry of Kiarostami’s ‘Where Is the Friend’s House?’.

But central to it all is Michelle Williams’s beautifully restrained and humane performance (her best by some stretch) which embodies the pent-up frustrations, doubts, fears and dilemmas that this lonely soul has been burdened with. Her nuanced and naturalistic delivery wrings poignant truth from the realities of Wendy’s struggle for perseverance and dignity, where every decision is crucial, and every futile cry of ‘Lucy!’ stabs directly at the heart. It’s what makes this film the small miracle that it is.

Author: David Jenkins 2009-03-03 10:28:52

Time Out London Issue 2011, 5 – 11 March, 2009

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User reviews of this film

Technoguy said...

Posted on Jul 11 2009 17:36 She is a drifter with a dog in a car from Indiana heading for Alaskan work whose car breaks down in Wilsonville, Oregon. She gets done for shoplifting
and loses her dog. She sleeps rough when not in her car. She carefully budgets what money she has left, about $500. She has two main contacts here, the mechanic(Will Patton) and the elderly guard who watches the car park at the store back..The story is sensitively rendered and Wendy is an undemonstrative, goodly soul who’s family are portrayed as indifferent to her plight when she calls them.Her relationship with her dog Lucy is the closest she has. We see them in various scenes in the woods or in town together. This performance by Michelle Williams shows the fragility of character, is subtle and understated. She finds the limits of the world she lives in between the poles of the uppity store clerk who thinks she should be made an example of(he wears a cross) and the kindly old guard(Walter Dalton)who loans her his mobile to call the dog pound . This is a story about the marginalised, unemployed without home or job whose identity
is almost non-existent and is dependent upon the kindness of strangers. There are scenes of moving stock and train carriages,winding railway lines and shots
of graffiti on the sides of buildings with finely restrained cinematography. Her car is too expensive to fix and she finds her dog has been adopted by a good person
with a yard. She realizes she has to make sacrifices. This film has the barest of outlines of a plot and the majority of it occurs stranded in a small north western
Pacific town where there are no jobs.
Williams underplays to bring out the reality of the world she inhabits. Although I found it strange for a young girl
travelling in a car without a mobile phone I believed in her character. Reichardt has taken a leaf out of Rosetta and Not One Less, world films of grim realism
that work on a thin trail of hope and exploration. Thank God Hollywood didn’t get hold of this:pumped-up scenario,sex and sentimentality. A good indie film.

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Jason M said...

Posted on Apr 22 2009 03:54 I too was somewhat surprised by the rating. Time Out however is nevertheless correct that this is an understated masterpiece. We think we know the story, but we are talking about the twenty first century, not the times Steinbeck lived through. It’s as influential too. Shouldn’t we give the benefit of the doubt and to over-the-hill busker or young begger and not always blame ineptitude or drug dependence for their lot? Lingering questions are savoured after seeing this film. Did the affable security guard keep his generosity restrained from the young girl who was obviously sleeping rough, or for him, was the five dollars a princely sum for him to give? I think for the cinematography alone, not to mention the depth of meaning, this film will be studied in years to come. Along with Gran Torino, it comes with a sense of foreboding about economic and social decay in the West which leads to another question, does it always go like this? Maybe so, but the film lets you see for yourself that there is something to be said for being more generous, helping out a bit more and perhaps planting some flowers along the cracked sidewalk.

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Paul said...

Posted on Apr 08 2009 19:28 While my expectations had been hyped up by the 6 star rating and felt a little disappointed, it was still at least a 4 star and a wonderfully shot film. It does leave you feeling ready for random acts of kindness and and softened my hard heart a little. The critique of society being restrictive and comparison to Of Mice and Men is spot on

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lenatea said...

Posted on Apr 01 2009 16:24 with my expectations of a 6* film i left feeling a tad disapointed giving it a good 3*.

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Jamie said...

Posted on Mar 26 2009 08:51 I have not seen a film in a while, so I was hugely disappointed to have picked this one. Time Out have oversold this film. It may be minimalist and understated, and even 'real', but there is nothing clever about that and it certainly didn't make for an engaging story.

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hometime said...

Posted on Mar 19 2009 21:24 I thought the movie was wonderful. These folks who keep saying 'it felt like 2 hours long' why didn't they just leave the cinema if they thought it was that boring? having left the cinema they could have gone shopping and purchased a Peter Kay DVD.

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Serena Williams said...

Posted on Mar 16 2009 18:22 I personally loved this film! Its what you call 'A breath of fresh air'.
like it or lump it :)

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jeb said...

Posted on Mar 16 2009 00:29 anyone who doesn't like this film is dead inside. dead.

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grace said...

Posted on Mar 15 2009 22:47 Really, really dull.

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AS said...

Posted on Mar 15 2009 09:48 Agree 111% with Milan
"i say, it's an 80 min long film that feels like 2 hours, and which should have been a 10 minute short. "

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emo said...

Posted on Mar 15 2009 00:01 We trusted your six star rating but sadly we thought this movie was rubbish. The boy said "I'd rather have seen Marley and Me". My housemate said "Well that's what you get if you go and see a film about a dog".

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Ric said...

Posted on Mar 14 2009 18:44 De Sica, and not Di Sica, please...

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Milan said...

Posted on Mar 10 2009 22:36 "...a threat of loneliness and destitution bubbles frenetically beneath its stoical façade."
"Stylistically uncomplicated and admirable in both its honesty and the terseness of its storytelling, the film manages that rare feat of being both remarkably prescient and modest at the same time."
i say, it's an 80 min long film that feels like 2 hours, and which should have been a 10 minute short.

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timb said...

Posted on Mar 05 2009 10:14 A small factual point: Oregon is in the Pacific Northwest, not the Midwest.

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Sam said...

Posted on Mar 04 2009 23:09 A beautifully humane film that lifts the spirits, despite being very downbeat, thanks to the subtlety and strength of Michelle Williams performance and the beauty of its cinematography.
And btw why not support it on it's opening weekend; it IS worth the money.
http://www.birds-eye-view.co.uk/99/about/first-weekenders-club.html

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