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Apr 10, 2015Nursebob rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
Kelly Reichardt’s pessimistic look at one young woman’s disenchantment with the American Dream is suffused with so much angst and disappointment that at times it is almost unbearable to watch—even the otherwise beautiful scenery is tainted with mud while the flowery doodles adorning a homemade logbook seem pathetic. And, even more significant, everything everywhere comes with a price tag attached to it. As Wendy desperately searches for a way out of her predicament she comes up against the usual stock characters, each representing one facet of of society: a group of vagrants find some solace in each other’s misery; a kindly security guard offers what little he has; and a clean-cut grocery clerk’s zealous adherence to “The Rules” marks the beginning of Wendy’s tribulations. Not all the elements click (a phone call home comes across as stagey) and at times Reichardt is a little heavy-handed with the pathos, but thanks to a believable script which favours realism over sentimentality and a convincingly downbeat performance by lead Michelle Williams (sans make-up and shampoo), "Wendy and Lucy" is a small tragedy with enormous implications.