Tag: Woman Director

I avoided Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy for years because I was a little too worried about the dog.* Having overcome my fear, I found another quality movie focused on a small slice of life. Michelle Williams brings another quality performance to a Reichardt film and the stakes are high for such a small story.

Cost: free from Multnomah County Library (my Kenton Library branch is very close to the Walgreens where this movie was filmed. There’s a lot of North Portland spotting for those in the know.)
Where watched: at home** in preparation for Filmspotting Madness best of the 2000s

*The dog is fine, I needn’t have worried.
**Matt was half watching. “Is this a crime or horror movie?” he asked when the movie started. I assured him it was neither, as even Kelly Reichardt’s film that involved crime was not a crime film. As the movie ended he said, “I kept waiting for her to be raped, or harmed in some way.” Though I did fear for the dog, I knew that the trouble for Wendy was not going to involve physical harm. That’s not Reichardt’s way. (Slight exception, Night Moves, though it makes sense in the context of that film.)

In Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace, Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie do more with less acting as a father/daughter pair living in a city park* This movie is Tom’s coming of age story as the discovery of their home-in-the-park sets her and her father into “real life” and wakes Tom’s typical adolescent yearning for something different.** Chock full of good, quiet acting by both leads and by a handful of smaller performances (Dale Dickey was particularly good as was Isaiah Stone**), this is a quiet movie of growing up.

Cost: $3.99 via Google Play because I didn’t get around to watching it when it was on Netflix.
Where watched: at home.

*Forest Park, in my own Portland, Oregon. It’s a huge park with trails for miles. This movie is based on a book that was inspired by the mid-2000s discovery of a father/daughter pair living in Forest Park. The story was well-covered by the local media and has stuck with me.
**Not that this leads to acting out like most teenagers would. This entire movie is full of small moments and subtle performances.
***Both actors were also in Granick’s very excellent Winter’s Bone