Wendy and Lucy

Kelly Reichardt's meditation on the fringes of economic life "Wendy and Lucy" makes for good cinema as well. Wendy is a young someone searching for a way to make more money, and clearly someone who's been down on her luck for a while that decides to head for Alaska where the standards for getting jobs are not related to resumes and office casual styles. Simple enough story, she sets out with her only real possession/relationship, her dog Lucy, and after traveling across country from Indiana to Oregon breaks down in a small town. The loss of the car stops everything. Wendy has had the gift of a song she hums as her major pastime and it ultimately winds up to be all she has left. When you are on the economic margins small catastrophe's loom large (like the fact that it costs $50 to tow a car 30 yards because "that's what it costs"...) Emotionally played by Michelle Williams, Wendy is a quiet study of the inner thought process writ large on her face inspite of her stoicism. In Wendy we see a yearning for independence and simple aspiration that we are left feeling will be seen through regardless of circumstance...