Review of Wendy and Lucy (2008) by Brandon S — 26 Jan 2011

Sometimes the most heartbreaking stories are the simplest. Michelle Williams gives a restrained yet powerful performance in Wendy and Lucy, a film about economic struggle and loneliness and how the down and outs try to find their way in American society.

Williams plays Wendy, a young woman who for one reason or another has found herself homeless and making a journey to Alaska where she hopes to find summer work. Her only companion on the long trek is her dog Lucy. When Wendy loses her faithful companion she journeys to find her only friend in a strange place.

Wendy and Lucy owes it's success to it's restraint. This a film that is quiet and restrained, not going for the melodrama that you may often find in socially conscious filmmaking. The film is sympathetic, hopeful and critical without lecturing to the audience. It only wants to present the plight of all Americans through a story of a woman looking for her dog.

The quiet found in the film is most likely the product of the films low budget, but it's the best way a story of this sort could be told. With a larger budget film, the filmmakers might have cheated, using the music as an applause sign for tears. Instead the filmmakers had the confidence and skill to simply present the story as anyone would experience it, and the results are thoughtful and moving.