Wendy Carroll (Michelle Williams) is driving to Alaska with limited cash and her dog Lucy. Her car breaks down. She tries to steal some dog food and gets caught. She had tied Lucy up in front of the grocery store. When she returns from getting arrested, Lucy is gone. There is a friendly security guard. Lucy isn't at the pound. Bill the mechanic (Will Patton) charges Wendy the few bucks she has left.

This is a generally slow movie. There are instances of harrowing tension. There is some tension hoping for good things but expecting bad things to happen to Wendy. It's a series of bad things with some poignant moments. The ending is a little weak. With the way things are going for Wendy, I expect the ending to be a lot more heart-breaking and a lot more final. Riding off into the sunset isn't definitive enough.

Kelly Reichardt's "Wendy and Lucy" came out over a decade ago, but I only now got around to seeing it. This movie is like a kick in the gut, with Michelle Williams as a young woman mired in the desperation that has marked so many people's lives in the 21st century. As situations conspire against her, things get dire.

The movie is shot in a minimalist style (much like Reichardt's later "Meek's Cutoff"). There's little music and mostly unrecognizable faces, emphasizing the bleak outlook for this small town in Oregon. That, plus the misfortune befalling the protagonist, belies the pontifications about "financial responsibility"; such a concept will serve no purpose in a world where the common people have no future. Like John Sayles's "Limbo", it has an ambiguous ending. Makes sense, considering that the characters have no guaranteed economic security.

Anyway, it's an outstanding movie. It shows Michelle Williams as one of the finest actresses of our era, and Kelly Reichardt as one of the greatest directors. I am now eager to see more of her work.

Young, wayward Indiana woman, who hopes to find work in a fishery up in Alaska, instead finds herself bereft and homeless in Oregon; her car breaks down, she has to sleep outside in the woods, and she's separated from her faithful Retriever-mix companion after landing in jail for shoplifting. Director Kelly Reichardt, working on a budget of some $200,000, also adapted the script with Jon Raymond from his story "Night Choir". Though obviously a talent to watch, Reichardt is nevertheless unable to get a good rhythm going here since this character portrait is so unremittingly bleak, impersonal, and slim. Michelle Williams has a spare, lovely speaking voice, a direct manner and an open face worth reading, yet the people her Wendy comes in contact with do not allow this hapless girl to open up (we learn precious little about her, which appears to be intentional). The picture has the grit and ambiance worthy of a superlative short subject, but at 80 minutes we should be getting more than dead-end conversations and a tour of the Portland dog pound. ** from ****