Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy contains a lot of social commentary, but like the best films that make social comment, the real power is to be felt in the atmosphere of the presentation and the emotions of the characters. It follows a enigmatic young woman called Wendy as she ‘passes through’ a town on her way to Alaska, and loses her dog, Lucy – her only friend.

The atmosphere throughout the whole thing is extremely bleak in an interesting way. It was evidently shot on a very small film because the picture is grainy and the colours are sharp. This leads to a pungent portrayal of some very mundane things. The sun is shining and the neighbourhood is relatively varied, but the whole thing is compellingly sad. It could easily remind you of Kieslowski’s Dekalog, except that the plot isn’t that bleak. Instead it’s a bit of a Western homage to foreign films of the that type. Aside from this resemblence there are visual nods to Bergman and Tarkovsky, and the town almost resembles Stalker’s ‘Zone’. These three directors all worked with grand spiritual themes though, while Wendy and Lucy has none. It has the same amazingly clever effect of giving you vast amounts while supplying small pieces of information though, and the loneliness, while less existentialist, is just as poignant.

There’s something wonderful about a director who has enough confidence in their actors to know it’s OK to just put them out there and let us observe them. Kelly Reichardt rightly places this confidence in Michelle Williams, Heath Ledger’s ex-wife. Her personality reflects perfectly the despair and irritation of the atmosphere, and is deadpan but very complex, or somehow gives the impression of complexity. Rather like Ulrich Mühe’s character in The Lives of Others, she is realistic and interesting, while allowing viewers to project their own personality onto her. Despite her demeanour, she often hums, and doodles in her notebook as she works out her expenses. Watching her reach out to her brother in law over the phone is particularly telling: he’s as surprised that she’s calling as we are, and even more surprised and delighted that she was just ‘calling to talk’, as he wished he knew more about her. She makes a strong statement in general however, which seems to be that poor circumstances can make cynics, if not outright bastards, of all of us.

Wendy continues to show little outward emotion even when she finally finds her dog, though intriguingly, she does kiss it. Playing with her again is interesting to see: it’s as though she’s simply going through the motions of play. It appears that the dog is a part of her, not just her friend. The other personalities the film explores are similarly deep yet concise. There’s the feeling of variety and an accurate snapshot of humanity even though there’s little talking and next to nothing happens. Wendy’s personality is juxtaposed against several more pleasant ones with equally naturalistic actors. There’s a policeman whom she talks to regularly, who becomes a beacon of happiness in her life. The relationship exists to defy expectations; his kindness is clearly unmotivated by sex, even though he is a policeman and she is a vagrant. We briefly see what appears to be his wife, suggesting that he could be taking a risk by being so kind. The other people Wendy interacts with show her similar kindness, even though she has done nothing to bring it out in them, sending quite an optimistic message about humanity.

Not everyone is so nice to her; a frightening scene where she sleeps in a forest and is berated by a tramp drives her to breakdown. She runs miles to a petrol station bathroom, which she had formerly used as a dressing room – the closest thing she has to a home. Every single person she meets is either a tramp or at work, and Wendy herself is on her way to Alaska in order to find a job. The policeman gives her a small amount of money at one point, and this seems to be the message: that tramps deserve sympathy, and money. Employment is harder to come by than you think.

Even depressive Wendy takes pity on a tramp who asks her for the cans she picked up and gives them to him. When she talks to her brother in law, her sister comes on the line and simply tells her that they have no money. Wendy repeats that she was just calling to talk, and one is inclined to believe her. Her sister’s exasperation strongly suggests that Wendy has borrowed money before, but it’s hard to believe that she spent it on drink and drugs. Her car breaking down is one of the film’s setpieces, possibly to demonstrate that she is low on luck. So rather than become the object of annoyance that twentysomething down-and-outs usually do, her borrowing of money actually makes her more deserving of sympathy.

The film has a complex view of consumerism to say the least. At one point Wendy steals some food for herself and Lucy. The sequence is difficult to take a specific message from, which makes it all the more fascinating. She is caught by a young, crucifix wearing upstart of a clerk and is hauled before a sympathetic but hand-tied supervisor. She spends a humiliating night in prison, during which the prison guards, after a mistake, have to take her fingerprints twice. The police leave Lucy outside the shop, and this is what separates the titular characters. But this is the only thing you can really judge the police for. The makers don’t seem to condemn the turnkeys involved (the clerk, the supervisor and the police) for not turning a blind eye. But it doesn’t condemn Wendy for taking the food either. Despite the demonisation of the clerk for turning her in, Wendy can afford the fine – so she did have enough money. Then when she sees the clerk in public, she screams at him. Either the film is defending her right to food she hasn’t paid for, or it’s a postmodernist expression of unescapable unfairness.

Wendy’s car becomes an interesting symbol. Without it she can’t take her dog anywhere, and it’s devastating to find out that the cost of repairing it is more than she can afford. It is never seen being driven, and this combined with her dependance on it suggests it represents employment. An unreliable object easily taken for granted, hulking and metallic, well designed but a massive liability. The dependance on money is seen throughout: when Wendy puts up ‘lost’ posters for Lucy, one of them is seen alongside someone else’s poster. The other poster offers a reward. Dependence is an interesting thing, of course: most of the things to which this film attributes importance really surround a dog.

Wendy and Lucy is a brilliant and above all respectful film, which shows a lot of talent and a daring mix of old and new ideas. It explores its themes thoroughly yet modestly, and sends a message of optimism in the face of economic difficulty. However, be warned, it is very pretentious. As with the best of films the makers don’t care how pretentious it is, and so those who dislike slow films with indulgent photography should definitely stay away. There is more of a plot than in, say, Happy Go Lucky (which it the film’s polar opposite in terms of characterisation), but still much less than a conventional film. It actually goes over a quite integral line of pretentiousness, in that it has not a single joke. Tarkovsky, Bergman, and Kieslowki always had at least one, and even Shakespeare recognised a comedic interlude as an integral part of a play. I’ve nothing against challenging expectations, but to portray a world with no humour in it at all is simply unrealistic. If none of these things faze you however, look out for this film.