Review of Certain Women (2016) by Wes I — 18 Jul 2017

Excellent character-study follow-up to Reichardt's "Meek's Cutoff.".

Three story-lines play out and follow briefly four female lives in small-town Montana. An attorney, a married Mother of a teenage daughter, a ranch-hand, and a just-starting-out lawyer. There is nothing extra-ordinary about any of these lives; but patient viewers will watch enraptured, and indeed become quite concerned with, what happens in each of these characters' stories.

Very difficult to describe this film. Each character is shown to be at-odds or out-of-step with their own lives in some way. How they deal with conflict (and disappointment) is what drives this film along its inexorable, winding path.

All four leads are excellent in their roles. Your only grief will be wanting to know more, so much more, about each when the film is over.

What is compelling this attorney to assist a client who won't take "No" for an answer? Why is this Mother so at opposite ends with her family? And why is a lonely farm-hand so taken in by a reluctant female instructor of school law?

It is up to our imaginations to fill in blanks. These lives could mirror our own, if cameras pointed to us during our daily grinds; but especially in those times events knocked us off balance. Reichardt's camera delivers off-kilter drama that captures feelings of doubt and quiet desperation in each of these characters that you'll feel down to your innards.

"Certain Women" doesn't deliver a "knock-out" punch...you'll realize it wins on points long after it's over, and you're still pondering each mini-tragic tale.