wendy and lucy

I'm one of the few people that did not like the movie "Wendy and Lucy." I listened to a radio interview with the director this morning, and it did not make me like the film any more. On paper and in theory, I should like this movie – it's sparse and realistic, it's about a young woman and a dog, it was filmed in the Pacific Northwest and directed by a woman. I'm sort of the target audience for a film like this.

To me, it seemed like a grad student project. An okay film, but not something I would necessarily pay money to see. Michelle Williams was decent, but not oscar-worthy. There was something about this film that I just didn't buy. Maybe that Michelle Williams is really heading for a cannery in Alaska? It seemed more plausible that she'd be heading to a barista job in Portland.

I appreciate the director's effort to expose the precarity of life in the grand US of A, but it didn't work for me. Maybe if I was still an alienated 22-year-old that can't get a job and doesn't know what to do with my life. But, getting older has taught me that that stage of life is a lot less interesting and romantic than I thought it was while I was in it.

I wonder why this director has a fascination with people on the edge of society. If I had to bet, I would say that she has never been close to the social/economic precarity her characters face. And that is probably why the film does not ring true.