On the road with trouble

A New York Times television reporter recently called this “the year of Slumdog Millionaire” referring to the remarkably successful, exuberantly vulgar and Oscar-garnering film by Danny Boyle. Toronto Film Festival director Cameron Bailey wrote in the Toronto Globe and Mail several weeks ago that this is a no-brainer. Slumdog, he said, intensely celebrated the glorious hard-won triumph of one of India’s most lowly lumpen unfortunates. This is the kind of material that inspires the admiration of both audiences and awards voters in troubled, straitened times like ours.

Michelle Williams in Wendy and Lucy

No doubt, but this is really only a variation on an old escapist theme. Wendy and Lucy (which the Toronto Film Critics Association named the best picture of last year, apparently sharing Bailey’s opinion about Slumdog) is a much more telling reflection of this era, but its bleak honesty isn’t calculated to attract significant popular interest. As directed by Kelly Reichardt (Old Joy), the film is far from expansive in style or narrative, and it leaves little room for sentimental consolations in the modest scope of its story. But, in a manner roughly reminiscent of the Italian neorealist films of about six decades ago, its small, acutely rendered details and effects build to a quietly compelling power.

Wendy (Michelle Williams) is a young, down-and-out Hoosier who sets out from Indiana in search of employment opportunities in Alaska, accompanied by Lucy, her mixed-breed dog. When her car breaks down in a nowhere little Oregon town, she finds herself strapped for money. Caught trying to shoplift some dog food, she returns to the place where she left Lucy to find the dog has been stolen.

Most of the rest of Wendy and Lucy concerns Wendy’s frustrated and increasingly desperate search her dog. The reactions of the people she encounters range from indifference to outright brutality. A small act of kindness from a security guard is sharply contrasted with the behavior of others.

Reichardt (who co-wrote the film with Jon Raymond) gives Wendy and Lucy a largely uninflected tone. The film doesn’t underscore or rise to dramatically charged sequences. But its portrayal of Wendy’s plight and the obstacles with which she has to contend develops a different kind of force. Reichardt may have tried to control the dramatic tension but she hasn’t just provided sociological insights. The film achieves a troubling, poignant sense of personal character. If Wendy has few illusions about life in her quarter of American society, she is capable of a practical durable heroism. Indeed, it may be less a choice than a necessity in her environment.

Williams (Brokeback Mountain) gives the role a quietly eloquent power. Even as the odds against even very limited success for Wendy seem to increase, her performance remains emotionally and socially convincing.

Wendy and Lucy winds up being a moving depiction of personal challenge and courage in deprived and dangerous circumstances. It’s a kind of neorealism for our time.