Do you want to see ‘Wendy and Lucy’?

Wendy and Lucy (2008)

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All Critics
Top Critics

Average Rating: 7.3/10
Reviews Counted: 148
Fresh: 126 | Rotten: 22

Michelle Williams gives a heartbreaking performance in Wendy and Lucy, a timely portrait of loneliness and struggle.

Average Rating: 7.1/10
Critic Reviews: 32
Fresh: 27 | 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: 10,710

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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

R, 1 hr. 20 min.

Drama

Directed By: Kelly Reichardt

Written By: Kelly Reichardt, Jonathan Raymond

In Theaters: May 22, 2008 Wide

On DVD: May 5, 2009

Box Office:$0.7M

Oscilloscope Pictures

Wendy and Lucy Trailer & Photos

More Photos (6)

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

Critic Reviews for Wendy and Lucy

All Critics (150) | Top Critics (32) | Fresh (133) | 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.

March 18, 2009 Full Review Source: Orlando Sentinel

| Comment

Roger Moore

Orlando Sentinel

Top Critic

Wendy and Lucy is quiet, deliberate filmmaking. See it knowing you will witness an idiosyncratic take on storytelling by a fundamentally independent filmmaker.

March 6, 2009 Full Review Source: Denver Post

| Comment (1)

Lisa Kennedy

Denver Post

Top Critic

Deliberately paced -- slow, even -- it's nevertheless an amazing, timely parable for increasingly desperate times.

February 26, 2009 Full Review Source: Arizona Republic

| Comment

Bill Goodykoontz

Arizona Republic

Top Critic

Wendy and Lucy is a short, sweet film with a premise as plain as they come: A girl and her dog drift into town.

February 20, 2009 Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle

| Comment

Amy Biancolli

Houston Chronicle

Top Critic

The very definition of a small film, Wendy and Lucy nonetheless packs some serious wallop thanks to a quietly extraordinary performance by Michelle Williams.

February 13, 2009 Full Review Source: Detroit News

| Comment

Tom Long

Detroit News

Top Critic

Such is the resonant magic of Kelly Reichardt's remarkable little film, one of those exercises in minimalism where every word matters, every shot counts, until the kernel expands and a whole world emerges in 80 brief minutes.

February 6, 2009 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail

| Comment

Rick Groen

Globe and Mail

Top Critic

Wendy and Lucy is the blues, pure and simple.

August 16, 2011 Full Review Source: East Bay Express

| Comment

Kelly Vance

East Bay Express

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.

December 2, 2010 Full Review Source: Suite101.com

| Comment

Nick Rogers

Suite101.com

The pace of real life is the rhythm that drives Reichardt's beautifully minimalist film.

June 13, 2010 Full Review Source: DCist

| Comment

Ian Buckwalter

DCist

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.

August 30, 2009 Full Review Source: Washington Times

| Comment

Sonny Bunch

Washington Times Source: Washington Times

Bruises while barely raising its voice

August 26, 2009 Full Review Source: CinePassion

| Comment

Fernando F. Croce

CinePassion

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.

May 13, 2009 Full Review Source: Shared Darkness

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Brent Simon

Shared Darkness

... tender, tough and uncompromising, photographed with a disarming directness and seeming simplicity...

May 5, 2009 Full Review Source: Parallax View

| Comment

Sean Axmaker

Parallax View

If Wendy and Lucy isn't the most dynamic movie around, at least its tone and approach are sure-footed and appropriate.

May 1, 2009 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com

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Dan Lybarger

eFilmCritic.com

As in Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy's calculated understatement is at once instrumental to its bliss and damnation.

April 30, 2009 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine

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Ed Gonzalez

Slant Magazine

The last masterpiece of 2008, and the perfect yin yang to its first.

April 30, 2009 Full Review Source: Projection Booth

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Rob Humanick

Projection Booth

Wendy and Lucy gets under your nails, which is to say, it's the stuff of life.

April 30, 2009 Full Review Source: Projection Booth

| Comment

Rob Humanick

Projection Booth

Director co-writer Kelly Reichardt ... has fashioned a cautionary tale for the ages.

April 19, 2009 Full Review Source: JWR

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S. James Wegg

JWR

...an American Bicycle Thief, a simple, powerful film about the oppressive indignity of being poor in a wealthy country.

April 17, 2009 Full Review Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

| Comment

Philip Martin

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

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.

April 9, 2009 Full Review Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

| Comment

Duane Dudek

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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Audience Reviews for Wendy and Lucy

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Looking at the rating of the movie, it seems that (not surprisingly) I failed to comprehend the movie. Except for the protagonists and less than one handful of scenes, there absolutely was nothing that pleased me. I felt as if Lucy's mystery would land me into an interesting slot (agreed, my fault; but then waiting

October 25, 2011

familiar stranger

Super Reviewer

If you are like me, you have always been on the fence about Michelle Williams. Sure she is good, but I haven't seen anything from her that has really blown me away.That was until I saw Wendy and Lucy. It is a small little film that feels really influenced by the Italy's neo-realism movement. While the film itself is

July 8, 2011