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Some of you in movie-land may remember Umberto D, the masterpiece of neo-realism that still keeps Vittorio De Sica, along with the Bicycle Thief, relevant in classic film courses. It was all about a man and his dog, and how that bond superseded so much more of the petty crap that blocks in the way of simple story and character in movies. Because, in the case of Wendy and Lucy its direct descendant, all we can care about is the woman and her dog, and this raises the stakes of what to expect.
The director, Kelly Reichardt, follows De Sica's moral ideology if not the same sort of approach with the characters. This is about a woman who is leaving behind a dead-end existence with her sister and brother (who, in just one brief scene with her talking to them on the phone, convey all we need to know) to go to Alaska for some better tomorrow working on a fishing boat. There's no big grand plan, just with her dog and enough money to make sure she's not completely a bum of a drifter.
What makes it such a touching story is Reichardt's unwillingness to put contrivance in the way of her character and surrounding. Wendy's struggle is something palatable even if her journey to Alaska won't be: many of us have tied up a dog while going to do something in a store, and then the worry that comes of getting back to the dog in time before something happens to him/her. In the film, Wendy does make a mistake, of shoplifting a can of dog-food, but the price she pays is excessive: her dogs runs away while she's being held by the police, and her search for the dog has echoes of the De Sica film in its tone of stripped down, no BS drama, and even in some details.
It's impossible not to think of the former film when she goes to the pound to see if her dog is there, and then we get a remarkable, unflinching tracking shot going across all of the dogs that are there, unattended or soon to be put down, and there's another level of horror we feel because we can identify with this situation.
We also get with Wendy and Lucy one of the most, if not just the most, incredibly contained, restrained, but extremely intense performances from Michelle Williams. She's been building up to something like this, and she goes wherever the director wants to take her. It's great to see a very plain, ordinary woman who still has great concerns and fears and keeps going along, trying her best to not break down in tears, whether it's at the police station or when roaming the streets for her dog or putting down her coat and pieces of clothing in case the dog goes by, or even in front of the one slightly helpful (or just sympathetic) person in the old guard by the Walgreens.
I really admired how much she dug into this kind of character, not making her ever a real cliché, just an independent person who has fallen on some dark times without the one she loves. We can feel this person without knowing a whole life-story, and that's a credit to Williams maybe more-so than the writing.
Wendy and Lucy has neo-realist roots due to the obvious comparisons, but it also has its own independent voice because of the nature of how she's traveling and why she's traveling. It's about what is important to a person, be it a dog or a job or a car or a way to live one's life, no matter how much one has to walk. It's a powerful picture that fans of indie cinema should go gaga for, though it asks for some patience on a viewer's part for the relatively short running time.
score 9/10
Quinoa1984 18 April 2009
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2054401/ |
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29-11-2019 05:36:26