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— Help Wanted —

Wendy and Lucy

(Kelly Reichardt)

By Patrick McEvoy-HalstonMay 2009

With “Wendy and Lucy” involving one proud woman traveling throughrugged or decrepit surroundings, hoping to work her way to the one placeavailable which might promise a secure life, and perhaps also fulfillment (i.e., Alaska), the film could be deemed post-apocalyptic. But in films of this genre, where civilization wears and wolves encroach, setting serves to highlight andfacilitate/necessitate heroic action from the main protagonist, and overallregister a strong sense that this is the only appropriate backdrop for manly,independent living—the one gigantic thing civilization cannot offer because itostensibly comes at the expense of. The film works the other way around, where adults born when American society felt assured prove still worth seekingout; for they may be, if not the only, certainly still the

best

source available tohelp orient you to take on a more substantive, human way of relating with the world.It certainly isn’t fair to say that Wendy simply

reacts

to the world. She isshown throughout the film enterprisingly making something useful of theenvironment she finds herself in. She steals, parks her car where-ever-where,“transforms” a gas station bathroom into her own personal safehouse, and, when she is more comfortable therein, less braced against all its first-encounternewness, ranges wide across (her) town, bulletining images of her dogeverywhere appropriate in an act which reads as much of territorialpossession/demarcation as of fervent canine rescue. She is in fact quiteaggressive, with even her relative or absolute stillness in certain situationsreading not so much of forced paralysis but as a wily-enough a way to ridethings through. But though her aggressiveness may in fact be born out of a fearof paralysis, of being or feeling susceptible to being used, it’s not as much atriumph to witness as one might expect: one can imagine a whole life of such willful demonstrations ahead; and though it’s better than just giving up, you

wonder how far a life of survival instinct is from one infused with soulful intent,how distanced all such is from the animal? Again, to be fair to the film, theloner’s libertarianism is not exactly disparaged here; but there is a sense that while it does argue that it is much, much better to be the lone wolf than the pack animal, that the loner who survives through canniness, a willingness to act,alone, for better or worse, is vastly more dignified than those who mongrelizeaway into groups, it’s still so many worlds away from where humans need to andshould be.This, then, is not your 70’s post-apocalyptic, where being alone but with your dog was shorthand for experiencing the height of human freedom andexistential thrill. With apologies to the Cold War, oil shortages, and Americansall-drunk on narcissism funk, this is a film made thirty years past ’70’s hysteria,thirty years past the period where

even Republicans

voted for increases in social welfare spending, and those thirty years of brutal withdrawal of social concernand common purpose has made a future of large-scale dissolution seem possibleenough for us now to believe, believe, believe in Obama—because

he just has tobe

the answer. So in an era where the decomposition 70’s style anti-heroesloved because it drew all to their own certain will, feels like it is really could be just ahead, the big draw is not so much libertarian range but security: Alaskadraws Wendy because it may offer a job, in a cannery, which should soundhorrible, last resort, but may in fact appeal for it suggesting a life without toomuch adjusting to experience amidst the uncertain, unsettling now. When an aging, middle class man—the one who ends up taking care of Lucy—who in surer times would have laughed at by anyone with even a hint of hipness for his staidness, is set up in the end primarily to represent stability,good care, and kindness—the good home—you know a society has weathered tothe point where simple security can seem golden. Wendy knows its lure, and isreminded of it the very moment she loses Lucy. Before the loss, while Wendy was with Lucy, Wendy had some composure: she could listen to a group of trainriders—respectfully, if inertly—but dust them off as so much wtk and head alongher way. Set, content, with a dog of considerable well-being and joyfulness, it iseven fair to say of her that she seemed someone with

the capacity

, at least, tomake Alaska more than just a place to get a job, to make it a place where a betterlife might just be realized if not found. But when she loses Lucy, the search for

of 00

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01 / 25 / 2010

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An incomplete review of Wendy and Lucy.

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Category:	Research
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Upload Date:	05/12/2009
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Tags:	Film literary criticism wendy and lucy film criticism american film kelly reichardt Film literary criticism wendy and lucy film criticism american film kelly reichardt (fewer)