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Wendy and Lucy
Directed by: Kelly Reichardt Starring: Michelle Williams Genre: Independent/ Drama Run Time: 80 min. Release Date: September 2008 On The Web: Official Site Teaser: Movie Trailer Reviewed by Byron Merritt |
If you don’t feel like slitting your wrists before watching this film, afterward you certainly will. And I don’t say that in the sense that WENDY AND LUCY was purely a bad film, because some areas were okay. It’s just that the story is so downright depressing that I felt I needed a Prozac the size of a football after viewing it. I’m a fairly big Indie film fan, so I felt obligated to watch this "American Film Institute Best Picture Winner of 2009." Multiple film critics hailed it as "a stunning achievement." Really? Stunning? Maybe I’m losing my grip on film as a medium, but I found nothing in the film "stunning." In fact, it is so ordinary, the story so plain, the events so ...uneventful, that I was hard-pressed to keep my eyelids from forcing themselves shut. But all was not lost. Michelle Williams (LAND OF PLENTY) plays the part of a homeless vagabond quite well. Her situation is pitiful, if not acutely accurate in today’s struggling times. Williams is the only ray of success in what is otherwise a purely nowhere script. The only exception to this would be her experience of having to sleep in the woods and being presented with the possibility of rape or injury at the hands of a delusional man; the only tension in this otherwise relentlessly boring story. Even the dog seemed to just be going through the motions, being told what to do, when to hit her cue, when to bark. Most people go to the movies as a form of escapism. They want to be transported to another realm, another time, or, at the very least, into someone’s interesting life. I know. I know. Some film makers want to show us "the real world." But we live in the real world. Why would we want to experience something that we see or live everyday? The simple answer is, "We don’t." And this is where Wendy and Lucy let me down. There was so much of ordinary life in here that it made the entire film unremarkable. I’m not saying lives can’t be made interesting. Take a look at INTO THE WILD and you’ll see what I mean. And that’s just one example. But watching a car break down, a girl make phone calls, and befriend an old security guard just aren’t things that appeal to me. Yes, there’s more to Wendy and Lucy than that (the dog, Wendy’s struggle to get her back only to realize she can’t get her back, etc.), but the progression of how all this happens is, again, exceptionally boring. I’m still an Indie film fan, and probably will be until the day I die, but I won’t be a fan of this flick.
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Image from Wendy and Lucy
DVD cost: $18.96 Purchase: Tower.com Film Review Stew Favorite? No. Stew Poo-Poo? No. Newsworthy: Michelle Williams slept in her car for a few nights so that she could get into character. Movie Quote: "You can't sleep here, Ma'am."
Other Actors/Actresses from Wendy and Lucy
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Images from Wendy and Lucy
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