Review of Wendy and Lucy (2008) by Michael B — 28 Apr 2012

Kelly Reichardt manages to construct the film around Michelle William's Wendy - no easy feat given alienation and depression dictate her interactions and motivations. But Wendy and Lucy works best as a social critique.

American dreams, like the American land, the roads, the towns, are big, too big for some humans. Wendy navigates this unwelcoming environment with Lucy like a couple of toys brought out from the house to the garden in a fit of play then left there stranded in an oversize jungle.

There, waiting on the remembrance of a warm and familiar hand, they experience the most debilitating struggles. A broken car becomes a burden to be pushed and towed around, ques are too long, everything is too far to walk, the bus takes time, a taxi too much money, a risky train ride the only option.

Whether you pay flat rate or by the mile, modern distances are too costly. Without a phone or address modern communication is too costly. Preventing help is an interpersonal remove which governs Wendy's interactions.

Store codes of conduct, policies on the car parking lot, the distanced efforts of the pound all precede genuine humanity. The security guard shows that the wise can see beyond such falsities by genuinely reaching out.

But the almost catastrophic tone of the piece is not offset by this sparkle of hope.