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Wendy and Lucy, 2008
Wendy (Michelle Williams) is a young woman driving from Indiana to Alaska where she hopes to find work. Accompanied only by her dog, Lucy, Wendy stops in a small town where her car breaks down. Her funds perilously low, Wendy attempts to steal three cans of dog food from a grocery store, but is caught. When she gets out of jail, Lucy has disappeared from where Wendy left her. Assisted only by a friendly security guard (Wally Dalton), Wendy tries to locate Lucy while the seemingly impossible task of getting her car fixed looms.
Interesting to watch this film so close on the heels of Sullivan's Travels, a film that asserted that making films that are comedic and cheerful has much more value than "real" stories of the struggles of the poor and disenfranchised. This film is exactly such a window into the life of a woman living on the edge.
I thought that this film was pretty great. Williams is perfect as Wendy. I have always thought that Williams was a strong actor with great presence, but in this film she was truly just a person. All of her fears and hopes laid bare, her mounting frustration totally understandable. This is a person who is trapped and she's not making bad choices--she just doesn't have the means to make the right ones.
I think that one of the best aspects of this film was the way that it shows the spectrum of help and harm that someone encounters in a challenging situation. There are two characters who qualify as antagonists. The first is the young man in the grocery store who busts Wendy trying to take the dog food. He barely disguises his glee when the manager assents to calling the police, and snidely tells Wendy that anyone who can't afford dog food has no business owning a dog. (The prominently placed cross around his neck is the closest thing to a message I felt in this film). The other is a man who attempts to steal from Wendy when she camps out in the woods, a man who seems to threaten either physical harm or sexual assault. In both cases, these characters are all too happy to exploit Wendy's vulnerabilities for their own ends.
But the rest of the characters exist much more toward the middle of the spectrum. The security guard forces Wendy to move her car, but later lets her use his cell phone to call the animal shelter. The men in the line at the bottle collection are happy to wheedle Wendy's cans away from her, but seem genuinely to feel for her that she has lost her pet. The owner of the local garage charges Wendy $50 to tow her car to the garage, despite the garage being just across the street from where her car broke down. But later he displays some empathy for her situation, realizing that she cannot pay to fix her car.
A while back I was driving to work and I ended up behind a car with two number stickers, the contrast of which kind of shocked me. One of them was a soft pink sticker that read something like "I love my fur babies!!" with a cute dog paw decal. But the other read something like "If you can't speak English, get the f*ck out of my country!". I thought about that car when watching this film, the way that people can conceive of themselves as being kind, and yet on the other hand can display a callous, borderline cruel lack of empathy for others.
This movie is bleak and very sad. Yes, I cried a lot in the last 20 minutes. But it's not a film without hope. So much of what happens to Wendy is driven by "the rules". The security guard has to ask her to move her car. The grocery store manager has to call the police. The police have to get a cash payment for her fine. The garage owner has to charge her for the tow. Offscreen, Wendy has to have a permanent address to apply for a job. But inside of all of these "have to" moments are places where humanity and kindness have a chance to show up. I work in a job where rules and regulations are very much in place (and many of them for a good reason). I also work in a job where it is very easy to judge the people (especially the parents) I come in contact with. Films like this are a good reminder of a saying that my students adopted as a class motto one year: "Be kind; everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." Maybe if you follow this rule you end up giving someone who is lazy or selfish or just a jerk a break when they don't deserve one. But you might also be the person who saves someone from a downward spiral that they cannot escape.
I can see how this movie would not be for everyone. It really is just a slice of life. But I thought it was pretty excellent.
Wendy and Lucy, 2008
Wendy (Michelle Williams) is a young woman driving from Indiana to Alaska where she hopes to find work. Accompanied only by her dog, Lucy, Wendy stops in a small town where her car breaks down. Her funds perilously low, Wendy attempts to steal three cans of dog food from a grocery store, but is caught. When she gets out of jail, Lucy has disappeared from where Wendy left her. Assisted only by a friendly security guard (Wally Dalton), Wendy tries to locate Lucy while the seemingly impossible task of getting her car fixed looms.
Interesting to watch this film so close on the heels of Sullivan's Travels, a film that asserted that making films that are comedic and cheerful has much more value than "real" stories of the struggles of the poor and disenfranchised. This film is exactly such a window into the life of a woman living on the edge.
I thought that this film was pretty great. Williams is perfect as Wendy. I have always thought that Williams was a strong actor with great presence, but in this film she was truly just a person. All of her fears and hopes laid bare, her mounting frustration totally understandable. This is a person who is trapped and she's not making bad choices--she just doesn't have the means to make the right ones.
I think that one of the best aspects of this film was the way that it shows the spectrum of help and harm that someone encounters in a challenging situation. There are two characters who qualify as antagonists. The first is the young man in the grocery store who busts Wendy trying to take the dog food. He barely disguises his glee when the manager assents to calling the police, and snidely tells Wendy that anyone who can't afford dog food has no business owning a dog. (The prominently placed cross around his neck is the closest thing to a message I felt in this film). The other is a man who attempts to steal from Wendy when she camps out in the woods, a man who seems to threaten either physical harm or sexual assault. In both cases, these characters are all too happy to exploit Wendy's vulnerabilities for their own ends.
But the rest of the characters exist much more toward the middle of the spectrum. The security guard forces Wendy to move her car, but later lets her use his cell phone to call the animal shelter. The men in the line at the bottle collection are happy to wheedle Wendy's cans away from her, but seem genuinely to feel for her that she has lost her pet. The owner of the local garage charges Wendy $50 to tow her car to the garage, despite the garage being just across the street from where her car broke down. But later he displays some empathy for her situation, realizing that she cannot pay to fix her car.
A while back I was driving to work and I ended up behind a car with two number stickers, the contrast of which kind of shocked me. One of them was a soft pink sticker that read something like "I love my fur babies!!" with a cute dog paw decal. But the other read something like "If you can't speak English, get the f*ck out of my country!". I thought about that car when watching this film, the way that people can conceive of themselves as being kind, and yet on the other hand can display a callous, borderline cruel lack of empathy for others.
This movie is bleak and very sad. Yes, I cried a lot in the last 20 minutes. But it's not a film without hope. So much of what happens to Wendy is driven by "the rules". The security guard has to ask her to move her car. The grocery store manager has to call the police. The police have to get a cash payment for her fine. The garage owner has to charge her for the tow. Offscreen, Wendy has to have a permanent address to apply for a job. But inside of all of these "have to" moments are places where humanity and kindness have a chance to show up. I work in a job where rules and regulations are very much in place (and many of them for a good reason). I also work in a job where it is very easy to judge the people (especially the parents) I come in contact with. Films like this are a good reminder of a saying that my students adopted as a class motto one year: "Be kind; everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." Maybe if you follow this rule you end up giving someone who is lazy or selfish or just a jerk a break when they don't deserve one. But you might also be the person who saves someone from a downward spiral that they cannot escape.
I can see how this movie would not be for everyone. It really is just a slice of life. But I thought it was pretty excellent.