Wendy and Lucy (2008)
Average Rating: 7.3/10
Reviews Counted: 149
Fresh: 127 | Rotten: 22
Michelle Williams gives a heartbreaking performance in Wendy and Lucy, a timely portrait of loneliness and struggle.
Average Rating: 7.2/10
Critic Reviews: 38
Fresh: 33 | Rotten: 5
Michelle Williams gives a heartbreaking performance in Wendy and Lucy, a timely portrait of loneliness and struggle.
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Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 11,274
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Movie Info
Old Joy director Kelly Reichardt crafts this intimate tale of Wendy, an alienated Indiana woman who packs up her car and sets her sights on Alaska, but finds herself stranded in a small Oregon town with no money and only her faithful dog, Lucy, to keep her company. When Wendy realizes that there's nothing keeping her in her home state of Indiana, she makes the decision to relocate to Alaska and seek out work at the local fish cannery. With her four-legged friend Lucy in the passenger seat next
May 22, 2008 Wide
May 5, 2009
$0.7M
Oscilloscope Pictures
Watch It Now
Cast
-
Michelle Williams
Wendy -
John Robinson (IX)
Andy -
Will Oldham
Icky -
Will Patton
Mechanic -
Larry Fessenden
Man in Park -
Walter Dalton
Security Guard -
Lucy the Dog
Herself -
David Koppell
Kid by Fire -
Max Clement
Kid by Fire -
Sid Shanley
Kid by Fire -
Dave Hubner
Kid by Fire -
Michelle Worthy
Sadie -
Roger Faires
recycler in wheelchair -
Boggs Johnson
recycling man -
Tanya Smith
grocery checker
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Wendy and Lucy Trailer & Photos
All Critics (151) | Top Critics (38) | Fresh (134) | Rotten (22) | DVD (8)
Williams and Patton and the folks of this corner of Oregon serve up a slice of "indie" that, if it doesn't reach the level of "inspires," at least feels timely and true.
Top CriticWithin the confines of this minimalist (with a microscopic m) picture, there are sequences so vital, timely and of-the-moment, so powerful and well-observed and precise, the effect can be emotionally overwhelming.
Wendy and Lucy is quiet, deliberate filmmaking. See it knowing you will witness an idiosyncratic take on storytelling by a fundamentally independent filmmaker.
This brilliant, desperately sad Steinbeckian fable from American director Kelly Reichardt. It's Reichardt's third full-length feature ('Old Joy' was in cinemas last year), but only her first masterpiece.
Deliberately paced -- slow, even -- it's nevertheless an amazing, timely parable for increasingly desperate times.
Wendy and Lucy is a short, sweet film with a premise as plain as they come: A girl and her dog drift into town.
Wendy and Lucy is the blues, pure and simple.
The film ends on a devastating farewell, but also imparts important empathy to Wendy: Although she's at the bottom of the barrel, there are those still inescapably trapped beneath its weight. This is the downbeat, dejected truth of pure pennilessness.
The pace of real life is the rhythm that drives Reichardt's beautifully minimalist film.
Kelly Reichardt spends the 75 minutes of Wendy and Lucy weaving an intimate, narrowly focused story of unanchored life on the road and just how tenuous such an existence is.
Bruises while barely raising its voice
A willfully spare, carefully observed film about sympathy and generosity at the dirty-fingernailed edges of American life, Wendy and Lucy feels like a folk song come to life.
... tender, tough and uncompromising, photographed with a disarming directness and seeming simplicity...
If Wendy and Lucy isn't the most dynamic movie around, at least its tone and approach are sure-footed and appropriate.
As in Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy's calculated understatement is at once instrumental to its bliss and damnation.
This transfer gets the job done beautifully, particularly in the shadowy depth of the film's nighttime scenes.
Wendy and Lucy gets under your nails, which is to say, it's the stuff of life.
Director co-writer Kelly Reichardt ... has fashioned a cautionary tale for the ages.
...an American Bicycle Thief, a simple, powerful film about the oppressive indignity of being poor in a wealthy country.
This is not a saccharine, Marley & Me-type tale, but a wrenchingly ordinary story, emotionally manipulative in its own way -- I know my heart was in my throat -- about poverty in the land of plenty.
Audience Reviews for Wendy and Lucy
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Latest News on Wendy and Lucy
December 17, 2008:
Toronto Critics Love Wendy and LucyThe Toronto Film Critics Association broke with the pack this week, awarding "Wendy and Lucy" Best...
December 15, 2008:
AFI Names 2008's Finest FilmsThe results are in, and the AFI has spoken: "The Dark Knight," "Iron Man," "The Curious Case of...
December 3, 2008:
Independent Spirit Award Nominations AnnouncedThe Independent Spirits have announced their nominations for this year's awards. Frozen River,...
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Foreign Titles
- Wendy et Lucy (FR)
Wendy and Lucy is basically very simple film at it's core with the exception of the fact that it is also very complex film when it comes to it's characters.
Reichardt's films for me are more like poems. They has this captivating feel in them. Wendy and Lucy's main focus is in it's lead character Wendy, played by brilliant Michelle Williams, who is an kind of drifter. She has a destination where she is heading but after she gets separated from her dog Lucy, that is when things get more complicated. She seems to be stuck in a small town basically without any money or hint of her dog's whereabouts.
With elegant visual style and fine sound design from gifted Leslie Shatz, this film keeps you hooked. There are times when the film's pacing turns against it. And even at it's short 80-minutes running time, it feels much more longer that it actually is. Kelly Reichardt still proves with this film that sometimes less can be more and that with little gestures can accomplish to to create huge emotions.
Wendy and Lucy is interesting if a bit flawed work from very talented director.