Wendy and Lucy2008
Wendy and Lucy (2008)
TOMATOMETER
AUDIENCE SCORE
Critic Consensus: Michelle Williams gives a heartbreaking performance in Wendy and Lucy, a timely portrait of loneliness and struggle.
Wendy and Lucy Photos
Movie Info
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Cast
as Wendy
as Security Guard
as Icky
as Andy
as Mechanic
as Man in Park
as Herself
as Kid by Fire
as Kid by Fire
as Kid by Fire
as Kid by Fire
as Sadie
as recycler in wheelchair
as recycling man
as grocery checker
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Critic Reviews for Wendy and Lucy
All Critics (185) | Top Critics (58) | Fresh (158) | Rotten (27) | DVD (7)
In happy sum, Reichardt is one more of the current American directors, most of them still young, who are endowing our film world with pleasure and hope.
I expect there will be more stories like Wendy and Lucy's in the coming months and years. The wonder will be if they articulate their compassion and distress with such unforced eloquence.
The climax is a heartbreaker, and in its haunting finale the movie recalls no less than Mervyn LeRoy's Depression-era classic I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang.
Michelle Williams is in every scene of Wendy and Lucy, and ably carries that burden -- with her dark pixie haircut and cut-offs, she looks frighteningly vulnerable, an indie urchin stuck in circumstances both dire and mundane.
Evanescent and intangible, it dissolves into the air, leaving something tragic and mysterious behind.
Wendy and Lucy is too laconic to be mistaken for a social drama, but it's set in a land whose harshness seems to a require a stronger critique than Reichardt's vignettes.
Audience Reviews for Wendy and Lucy
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Super Reviewer
I appreciated the "contemporary Jack London story" vibe of this one, but it's hard to invest in such a thin plot: a woman with nothing but her dog loses her dog. Minimalist film, and based on a short story, but there's just not quite enough here - even for its paltry 80 minutes.
Super Reviewer
There isn't much to this film in that it has a stable plot or can carry a story. It's more a portrait of a sad lonely, pathetically poor girl who can't catch a break no matter what. It really is a heart wrenching film because of the time it was set and the probable fact that many people have gone through this phase of life and have been met with a cool, cruel world. Wendy has very little money, no job, and a car that is giving her trouble. One mistake prompts an avalanche of bad luck from the dinky Oregon town where she is stranded. One user has commented that she finds the townspeople to be kind in the face of the disparity of her situation, and she in turn should be kind. I'm not sure if this film is trying to be at all uplifting or commenting on people still having empathy during any economic crisis or for people suffering through it. It's more just about Wendy as a person, the trials of her life, and the sacrifices she has to make to survive, some of them heartbreaking to watch. She gives up all sense of pride in this film and comes out looking more saddened than anything. People in our country were one paycheck away from living on the streets as of 2008, and even today, so this film is full of commentary on the state of our nation. More importantly though, this film is timeless because of the empathy any of us feel for another human being and the struggles we all must go through in order to survive. Wendy does survive, and most of the film reflects her solidarity, her losses, and isolation. Overall I found this to be more of a downer than anything, with a strong performance from Michelle Williams, as she again exhibits all the qualities of the great actress she is. Worth seeing, no matter what year it is.
Super Reviewer
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