Lone Star Film Fest movie review: Wendy and Lucy

by Steve Smith of West and Clear

I defy you to watch this movie and not go home and hug your dog.

If you are looking for a movie to make you feel a little better about living in a country where unemployment is rising, 401(k) balances are falling and the economy is swirling the bowl, then Wendy and Lucy is not your movie. But if you’ve ever wondered about the story behind a lost dog poster put up on a utility pole, then this story might be. I defy you to watch this movie and not go home and hug your dog.

The latest film from Kelly Reichardt is a minimalist film about a young woman named Wendy (Michelle Williams), who is driving from Indiana to Alaska in the hopes of a summer of lucrative work in a fish cannery and the start of a new life with her dog, Lucy. When her car breaks down in Oregon, however, the thin fabric of her financial situation comes apart, and she confronts a series of increasingly dire economic decisions, which come to a head when Wendy and Lucy become separated. Williams is already getting buzz as a possible Oscar nominee for this role, and justifiably so.

The sad message behind the film is that it is all too easy for people to slip between the cracks in our society. When you are sitting in the audience with a car in the parking lot that can take you back to your house, it might be easy to feel that you will never find yourself on the edge like Wendy. But this film tries to show that security can be an ephemeral thing. And the sad moral to the story is that it is easier for a lost dog to find a home than it is for a lost person.