Wendy and Lucy” is the prototypical “small” movie – tiny budget, no bankable stars, little to hang an ad campaign around.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. Good movies come in all shapes and sizes.
But little “Wendy” is kicking up quite a fuss in critical circles, and I think I know why.
The film follows Wendy (Michelle Williams), a broke young woman hoping to relocate to Alaska to find work. All she has in life is her junker of a car and Lucy, her loyal hound.
A dumb act of desperation separates the two, and Wendy is left with precious little resources of any kind to find Lucy.
That’s it. Williams’ performance is perfectly adequate. She doesn’t chew scenery, or make Wendy anything but a sympathetic, and stricken, figure.
So why did the Toronto Film Critics Association pick it as the Best Movie of the Year? Better than “The Dark Knight?” “Doubt?” “Frost/Nixon?”
It also has popped up on numerous Top 10 movie lists as was nominated for best picture and lead actress at Film Independent’s upcoming Spirit Awards.
“Wendy and Lucy” director Kelly Reichardt’s take on her own film, courtesy of the LA Times, is instructive:
“I remember, after Katrina, feeling that the administration had, it wasn’t just an indifference for poverty but a hostility toward it. So we started with the idea of, if you don’t have any money and you don’t have a social network, you don’t have any of these nets, can you really better your situation? If you actually have the spirit and the gusto of ‘I want to make my life better’ — is that enough?”
Give Reichardt credit. Her film isn’t a polemic. The themes she addresses are part and parcel of the story, but they’re not heavy handed. Wish more creative types could strike that balance.
Her film underwhelms all the same. But film critics clearly like the image of an America where the poor are all but hopeless. That theme, which can be spun into social programs in the upcoming administration, clearly resonates with film critics.
“Wendy and Lucy” is an above average movie, nothing more. But film critics see it as vehicle toward a goal they support, so it should do well this award season.
UPDATE: Case in point: Check out EW’s Lisa Schwarzbaum’s take on “Wendy and Lucy” – “a textured ode – or maybe it’s a lament – to a lost America that would let such a vulnerable citizen tumble unnoticed in such free fall.”
(Photo: Michelle Williams plays a woman struggling to make ends meet for herself, and her dog, in “Wendy and Lucy.”)
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Critics definitely heart poverty. Dana Stevens in the Slate Movie Club from two years ago:
“The Pursuit of Happyness was a little too happy for its subject matter—I agree with Wesley’s friend that it made climbing out of poverty look like too much of an individualist, bootstrap-yankin’ adventure.”
How dare Will Smith’s dad not rely on government handouts in his quest for a better life? Being poor is way better than being poor and working for the American dream.
Great reference, Sonny. How you can see “Happyness” and not be moved by a man who turns his life from poverty to riches is astounding … yet Stevens did.
That line has seared itself into my consciousness as an example of all that’s wrong with movie critics who view their subjects through an ideological lens. It’s why I try (and, to be fair, oftentimes fail) to check my political baggage at the popcorn stand.
At least you’re trying. I suspect many film critics don’t even bother to try.
Hollywood loves the poor so much that they advocating policies guaranteed to create a whole lot more of them. In all honesty though, this story gets right to the heart of the argument. The most ardent conservatives of my aquaintence are those that rose out of poverty by their own hand, only to find that they’ve now got a government tax harness on trying to drag them back.