Wendy and Lucy Issue #38

Directed by Kelly Reichardt

By Tatyana Kagamas
Published: December 1st, 2008 | 12:00am

Wendy and Lucy, described as a companion piece to Kelly Reichardt’s 2006 feature Old Joy in its exploration of American anxiety, is a film whose political subtext is illustrated and somewhat overshadowed by the main character’s struggle against being marginalized by an uncaring society.

Wendy, played with almost painful restraint by the amazing Michelle Williams, is on her way to work in an Alaskan fish cannery when her car breaks down in a small Oregon town. Things get worse when she is caught shoplifting dog food for her companion Lucy, whom she is forced to leave tied to a post outside a grocery store. Upon being released from jail, Lucy has gone missing, and the heartbroken Wendy spends the remainder of the film searching for her.

Lucy is both Wendy’s sole companion and the only thing preventing her from disappearing onto the fringes of society. Wendy’s struggle to be reunited with her dog aligns her with others whose willingness to help or harm her reflects the rootlessness of her future without Lucy. Avoiding lyricism or sentimentality, Reichardt remains unflinchingly at eye-level with Wendy, using minimalist structure to reveal that which is so basically human in all the endlessly complex ways it manifests itself.