Review: Wendy And Lucy

Wendy And Lucy (2009)
starring: Michelle Williams, Wally Dalton, Will Patton, Larry Fessenden, Lucy the Dog
dir. Kelly Reichardt


I have a few friends who are going to think this movie is a boring waste of time. Why they think this way I don't know. It might be a lack of curiosity about simple events and how we relate to the people in those events. It's a shame really, it makes me think there is something missing in their humanity. Basically I hang out with a bunch of soulless bastards and needed to vent for a second. Sorry.

Wendy and Lucy is as simple as a movie gets. A young woman on a tight budget is trying to get to a place where she can earn a living and start a new life with her dog. Every penny counts and every minor set back becomes cataclysmic when you can barely afford to eat. This is the genius of this film.

Most of us at some point in time have had to decide whether we eat or do laundry. We've been stuck in a chaotic limbo when the car breaks down and need to figure out how to afford getting it fixed. These are real human events that are easy to relate to. It's those ideas that propel this film forward and make it so emotionally touching by the time you reach the end.

Michelle Williams gives a deep and profound performance as she deals with these problems while searching for her missing dog Lucy. It would be easy to say that if she had made a different decision everything would have gone okay, but it's not that simple. Life always steps in and things never go as easy as they are supposed to. Over the two days that she is looking for Lucy we watch as she comes to understand what she is capable of handling and what she isn't.

A complaint I've heard is that Wendy has no back story. Why did she decide to hit the road and look for work in Alaska? It doesn't matter. This isn't a film about what propels us to escape, it's what propels us to survive moment to moment. That the most important thing in a world gone awry is love, compassion and knowing when it is best to walk away.

Director Kelly Reichardt creates some beautiful images and never dwells on anything too long. She doesn't worry about creating a film of length and it's the running time of the that shows she wants to deliver a concise story and focus on the characters, rather than bog it down with subplots or heavy handed social messages.

It really is a movie of the times. When unemployment is at an all time high and foreclosures are happening on every street corner, Wendy And Lucy shows the struggle of everyday life and the emotional upheaval that can occur with even the smallest of setbacks.

9 out of 10