Plot: A young woman, driving from Indiana to Alaska looking for work, has a breakdown in Oregon and loses her dog Lucy. We are invited along to experience this life altering moment in Wendy’s life while she tries to put the pieces back together and continue her trek.
Wendy and Lucy seemed destined to be one of my favorites. You can ask anyone in my life who knows my film collection and favorite films and they will probably tell you that most have three common elements; they are melancholy, emotionally taxing and contained within a specific moment in time. They will also tell you that I love dogs. Wendy and Lucy has all of these elements, but there was something holding me back from truly liking it.
I have always been a proponent of films that don’t have a beginning or an end, but rather just the middle. I’ve heard that some people hate this. Those people have spent two hours invested in a story and they want to know exactly where these people came from and exactly where they are going end up. Maybe not wrapped up in a nice neat bow, but something close to that. Our lives aren’t that simple. They are made up of thousands of beginnings and endings and tiny stories. Some want an ultimate ending but all we know is what is occurring now. The story isn’t about what happened before but rather what is happening right now. We don’t need to know everything about their lives to gain something from the story and characters. However, Wendy and Lucy failed to convey anything of importance to me. While I understand the choices made, I feel that a little more information may have been helpful in this case. Unfortunately, I left the film with nothing new or gained other than an even greater appreciation for Michelle Williams.
Furthermore, I didn’t feel the connection between Lucy and Wendy, especially in the final scenes. It may seem silly since Lucy is a dog, but she’s one of the main characters and we need to believe the connection just as we would with human actors. Lucy really couldn’t seem to care any less when she was around Wendy. Whenever my family’s dogs see me, or even a dog of my friends, they get really excited. Lucy just seemed lost.
Although I’m only giving the film two and a half stars, that doesn’t mean I’m not recommending it. You could perhaps connect with it in a way that I wasn’t able. Michelle Williams is great (and becoming one of my favorite actors), I loved the stripped back soundtrack that contained only Wendy’s humming, and the overall filmmaking is excellent. It is beautifully photographed and I am looking forward to Kelly Reichardt’s next effort. So I guess what I am saying is that I think this is a well-made film, I appreciated the film, but it is one that I just didn’t connect with which left me wanting more.
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