| Elite Fan
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 42,450
| Maybe we could start a thread for Wendy and Lucy.
Thanks for the clip and that wonderful artice. I just have to post the Michelle part:
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This year, I want to talk about two female performances that shook me to the core with their vulnerability and, of course, their subtlety. I hope that I am proven wrong this year and that space will be made for these two extraordinary performances, but this is an unusually crowded year in the Best Actress race and for differing reasons, these performances have an uphill battle.
The other performance this year that is absolutely devastating whilst also being incredibly quiet is Michelle Williams in Wendy and Lucy. And when I say that Williams – as the titular Wendy – is quiet in this film, I’m saying she barely speaks at all and when she does speak, it’s in hushed tones like she’s embarrassed by the sound of her own voice. In a film that is ostensibly about what it means to scrape by on a few bucks in this land of opportunity, Williams’ portrayal is one that mixes both hope and despair.
Wendy is trying to get to Alaska to find some work, driving in a beat-up old car that she sleeps in, and all she has is a few hundred bucks and her dog Lucy. After her car breaks down and a series of events leads to her dog going missing, it seems that everything in Wendy’s tiny world has collapsed around her and she just doesn’t have the money to fix her problems. But when she talks to people, it is usually only for a purpose – she needs information or they need information from her – because she spends the majority of the time with her head down, trying to stay out of everyone’s way. There are a few instances when people try to strike up a casual conversation with her, but she scampers away before that ever happens. The only person she really talks to is the older security guard who doesn’t have a lot, but tries to give her everything he can.
In scene after scene, Williams is stunning in her ability to hold back, able to show us the thousands of emotions in her head by the way her eyes dart around or the way she keeps her face tilted downwards or the way she recovers from a startling incident by pacing around a gas station bathroom. When she shares scenes with the adorable dog that plays Lucy, the old adage about actors not wanting to share the screen with a child or a dog for fear of being upstaged turns out to be false in this case; there is no stealing a scene in the entire film from Williams. What’s remarkable about it is that she doesn’t do a whole lot, but it is exactly that type of restraint and inaction that speaks volumes about this particular character that seems awkward in conversation and uneasy around people. Watch the scenes in which Wendy is forced to interact with people to see how Williams pulls off those moments, where it looks like she wants to jump out of her skin.
Kelly Reichardt’s film is uber-indie, in that it has a languid pace and not a whole lot happens in the way of conventional plotting. To call it an understated film would be an understatement. But Williams’ performance really elevates the entire film, making us care for this person without even knowing a whole lot of concrete information about her. We see a phone call to a relative and not a whole lot of importance is said in the exchange, but a lifetime worth of hurt is conveyed in Williams’ trembling voice and slightly shaky hand.
The choices Williams makes consistently throughout the film – and indeed, her career – are fascinating and definitely unexpected. When Wendy and Lucy reaches it denouement, as an audience we are really ready for absolutely anything to happen because the character of Wendy is both known and unknown to us; she is like that stranger that we meet and feel like we know them based on their manner, only to realize that we don’t know them at all. By the time the film has ended, I felt like the security guard in the film, wanting desperately to help this passerby with more than a few bucks and a handshake but also feeling like she doesn’t really want anything more. And if we piece together those things a little bit more, we notice a fiercely independent streak in her and from there we can continue until an entire back story has unfolded in our minds.
But that back story is ultimately unimportant; what matters is what Wendy goes through in the eighty minutes of screen time, and Williams makes us feel empathy for this character without making us pity her. The notes that she hits – and doesn’t hit – enable us to see both everything and nothing when watching her. It is truly, undeniably, one of the most remarkable bit of acting I’ve seen this year.
So maybe the Academy will not recognize these two fantastic actresses in remarkable performances, but I’ll give it one last try in the language the voters understand:
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
Michelle Williams, Best Actress, Wendy and Lucy
| Synecdoche review: Yale Daily News - Kaufman’s playhouse
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The film is ornamented by the talent and beauty of several actresses: Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams and Samantha Morton, each of whom becomes both actor and character in Cotard’s untitled play.
| Wendy and Lucy reviews:
GayCityNews - The Having Society
Review: 'Wendy and Lucy' | csmonitor.com
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Review: 'Wendy and Lucy'
Almost documentarylike, film superbly captures the low-key despair of the vagrant's life in these hard-pressed times.
To describe the plot of "Wendy and Lucy" is to invite guffaws. Simply put – and there's no other way to put it – the film is about Wendy (Michelle Williams), a young drifter from Indiana who sets out for Alaska with her dog Lucy, loses her en route in Oregon when her car breaks down, and spends the rest of her time trying to find her.
Improbably, it's one of the most affecting films of the year, which once again demonstrates that all you need to make a good movie is talent.
I was not expecting the movie to be this good, since director Kelly Reichardt's overpraised previous film, "Old Joy," was an anomic snooze. But "Wendy and Lucy" captures like no other film the low-key despair of the vagrant's life in these hard-pressed times. Williams gives a performance that is so shorn of mannerism and theatricality that the effect is almost documentarylike. But make no mistake, we are watching a performance. Williams fully inhabits Wendy's moodscape. She captures the sullen fragility of someone who distrusts other people and yet relies on them to survive. Wariness and openness are writ equally large on her face.
This is one of the best movies ever made about how people bring their hearts and souls to bear on their pets. And it does so without a trace of sentimentality and special pleading. The emotional connection between Wendy and Lucy is a lot more nuanced than most movie portrayals of friendships between two-legged types. (Lucy is played by Reichardt's own dog, who also appeared in "Old Joy." This no doubt explains her terrific performance, which won last year's unofficial Palm Dog prize in Cannes.)
"Wendy and Lucy" is a road movie where much of the action takes place in one place. The road that looms before Wendy is a beckoning to a better life that she might never experience. We never learn much about the life Wendy has left, and this is as it should be. In a movie this understated, any sort of heavy-duty back story would seem jarringly out of place. We learn about Wendy from the company she keeps: not only Lucy but also strangers – a stockroom boy (John Robinson) who busts her for shoplifting, a security guard (Wally Dalton), an auto mechanic (Will Patton), a vagrant (Larry Fessenden). Like Wendy, these people carry an authenticity so unforced that "realism" seems like too heavy a term to describe it.
It takes a great deal of art to make a movie this artless. "Wendy and Lucy" is adapted from a short story by Jon Raymond, and it has the signal virtues of that form. It's a resonant little mood piece that packs a great deal into a small compass. Grade: A (Rated R for language.)
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Hollywood goes crazy for dog theatrics |
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