I’m kicking off 2023 by trying to watch and review one movie every day for the first 90 days, all of which will be 90 minutes or less.
Title: Wendy and Lucy
Release Date: December 10, 2008
Director: Kelly Reichardt
Production Company:Field Guide Films | Film Science | Glass Eye Pix | Washington Square Films
Summary/Review:
Wendy (Michelle Williams) is young drifter traveling from Indiana to Alaska where she hopes to find work in a cannery. Her traveling companion is her dog Lucy (Lucy). When their car breaks down in Oregon it leads to a cascading series of events where Wendy ends up losing Lucy. Walter Dalton plays a kindly security guard who tries to help Wendy.
The movie is an incisive look at the high cost of poverty and the risks for a woman being on her own, from an extortionate car mechanic to a creepy man in the park. Williams puts in an excellent performance lending a gravitas to Wendy’s loneliness and attempts to deal with many challenges. Lucy does a great job to.
The most obvious movie to compare this to is Nomadland. But I also found myself thinking of First Cow, perhaps because both movies start with a woman walking a dog in a wooded area in the Pacific Northwest. Turns out that Kelly Reichardt directed both movies!
Rating: ***1/2
Panorama of the Mountains 