Review of Wanda (1990) by Eric B — 20 Jun 2012

"Wanda" isn't quite the existential, feminist drama I was led to expect -- really, it's more like a bleak, no-budget, no-action take on the Bonnie and Clyde story. The film's long-term significance mostly stems from its uncompromised "indie" sensibility and the sad, curious trivia that auteur and star Barbara Loden (also Elia Kazan's wife) never wrote or directed another feature. She died of breast cancer just 10 years later.

It's bewildering to picture Loden pulling all the strings in "Wanda" behind the scenes, given her character being such an aimless, lethargic dullard whom others easily lead around. Wanda has lost her husband and children, but she shrugs off her impending divorce and doesn't even bother arriving in court on time. It's not that she's callous -- she simply has no remaining capacity for deeper human emotion. She casually slips into a vagabond lifestyle, letting her raw attractiveness win food and lodging from varied barroom conquests. Eventually, she hooks up with an older man (Michael Higgins, memorable in "The Conversation" a few years later) who has become an inept armed robber because there's nothing else he can do.

"Wanda" is a movie of ugly cars, drab hotel rooms, crummy bars and homely people. The film has a rough, grainy look and there is no musical score. Natural light and on-location shooting rule the day. It does have two believable lead performances (all other characters are trivial in comparison) and a powerfully depressing atmosphere.