Wendy and Lucy

WENDY AND LUCY - DVD Movie

Kelly Reichardt’s second feature, Wendy and Lucy, has even more Pacific Northwest piney quietude than her debut Old Joy, since its starring couple is a canine-human pair rather than a male duo. Will Oldham again makes a charged appearance, this time as Icky (Will Oldham), a grungy, train-hopping punk. Based on a short story, this time Jonathan Raymond’s "Train Choir," Wendy and Lucy’s dialogue is a sparse spattering amongst long, languid scenes that moodily portray a young woman, Wendy (Michelle Williams), suffering economic crisis and road trip malaise on her way to work Alaskan fishing boats. The bulk of the story takes place in Portland, where her Honda breaks down and she must engage the local mechanic (Will Patton) and Walgreen’s security guard (Wally Dalton) for honest advice and for help finding her dog, Lucy, who disappears during one of Wendy’s disasters. Wendy and Lucy would aptly be titled Wendy’s Bad Day, as problems pile up due to one main misstep. Williams does a great job portraying a woman who is semi self-sufficient but clueless in the art of survival. As the film speaks to many young people who have been broke and stranded, one will inevitably wonder why Wendy makes the unwise choices she does, for example sleeping in a dangerous area along a train track instead of finding a safer campground, or wandering the streets looking for her lost pooch in lieu of hunkering down for a temporary part-time job. The film straddles the line between social realism and fantasy in this regard, provoking frustration during certain plot twists. However, Wendy and Lucy is a pleasure to look at for its grainy greenery, hypnotic, sweeping landscape and train yard shots, and for the story, when it centers on developing the deep bond between a lady and her dog. --Trinie Dalton