Wendy and Lucy

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As she showed in her last film, Old Joy, director Kelly Reichartd likes 'narrative space'. It's a term that, loosely, defines a film with little or no plot to hold it together, relying on character to fill the void. Another way of explaining narrative space is that 'damn all happens'; damn all happened in Old Joy and damn all happens in Wendy and Lucy, but these two films have a strange pulling power that's hard to nail down. Maybe it's nice to get a break from the plot-driven norm and let ordinary characters live out ordinary lives on the big screen. Maybe. Here that ordinary character is Wendy (Williams), a drifter in Oregon on her way to find work in Alaska when her car breaks down in some backwater town, which never recovered once the local mill closed. Her only company is her beloved dog, Lucy, who goes missing when Wendy spends the day in jail after shoplifting dog food. What follows are Wendy's attempts to recover her dog. That's about it, but as in Old Joy, it's what happens 'around' the story that's more important - a subtle social commentary on an uncaring world that would watch as we slip into the gutter and disappear. Yes, that might be more important, but Reichardt fails to make her punitive plot appealing. It's not visually interesting, it doesn't offer any surprises and is content to chug along at it's own (deathly slow) pace. The minimalist plotting (the entire 80 mins could be squeezed into 20 if one was to be ruthless) does allow room for Williams to do her thing and her restrained performance is the highlight. Dressed in drab clothing that reinforce her surroundings and her hair cut to a boyish trim, it's fun to watch her move away from her Dawson's Creek beginnings and mature into a fine actress.