Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 32 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 47 Ratings

  • Starring: Michelle Williams
  • Summary: Wendy Carroll is driving to Ketchikan, Alaska, in hopes of a summer of lucrative work at the Northwestern Fish cannery, and the start of a new life with her dog, Lucy. When her car breaks down in Oregon, however, the thin fabric of her financial situation comes apart, and she confronts a series of increasingly dire economic decisions, with far-ranging repercussions for herself and Lucy. Wendy and Lucy addresses issues of sympathy and generosity at the edges of American life, revealing the limits and depths of people's duty to each other in tough times. (Oscilloscope Laboratories) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 28 out of 32
  2. Negative: 1 out of 32
  1. Wendy and Lucy is modest, minimalist. But it nonetheless reverberates like a sonic boom.
  2. 80
    Reichardt is a tremendously conscientious filmmaker, and not out to torture the audience. Yes, this is a fraught and agonizing story, but the way it ends, although heartbreaking, is absolutely right.
  3. Reviewed by: Anna Smith
    60
    Slow, ponderous, meticulously rendered realism that will appeal to specific audiences of slow, ponderous, meticulously rendered realism, with a heart.
  4. Like a worst-case-scenario, indie-movie cliché, Wendy and Lucy throws every bone it can at the screen.

See all 32 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 24
  2. Negative: 10 out of 24
  1. JohnnyH
    10
    Poor Wendy. Poor Lucy. Poor us! Poor those who didn't see the value in this piece. Simple, honest, yet full of life; adventure, love, loss, kindness, and finally sacrifice. Full of aspiration and disappointment, dreams and stark cold reality. As much as I'd love to, I don't think I could bare to watch this one again. Where's my doggy? There you are! Such a good girl! ...Yes, I love you too, baby girl! Expand
  2. TransporterM.
    8
    This is just the kind of film that gives viewer ratings a bad name. I suspect that those who think this film was boring would also think that De Sica's neo-realist masterpiece Umberto D - which it closely resembles - is also boring. It doesn't give critics a bad name to recognize that there are some movies that just can't serve two masters, as many try to do, and which are more like caviar than pizza. For the pizza-only lovers who missed the point of this movie, it is a "tranche de vie" - a slice of life - that poignantly illuminates the triumphs, tragedies, debasement, and, especially, nobility of everyday life. Expand
  3. JayH
    7
    Beautifully and very convincingly acted by Michelle Williams, but what a depressing and slow moving movie. I never lost interest but it did drag in parts. Believable. Sincere direction and the simplicity of the film makes it work. Expand
  4. Andrew
    4
    As another viewer noted, this is a companion piece to "Old Joy." However, this one never engaged me. Wendy makes poor choices, the consequences of which are easily foreseen, though apparently she lacks the ability to think one step ahead. OK, so it's a movie about what happens to someone with a hole at her center, the origin of which is unclear, running away from something toward "the last frontier" and probable exploitation, who decides and acts badly with little foresight. But I've seen films about people like her. This one adds nothing. The homeless and drifting are not, as the film tells us, largely harmless, mellow and victimized. Pitiable, yes. But the Pollyannish gloss on what is in general a depressing, predictable tale not only is jarring but offensive. Give "Old Joy" a look if you haven't seen it; it's a much more interesting view of the struggle to grow from adolescence into adulthood, having the same Portland-ish setting. Expand

See all 24 User Reviews

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