Wendy and Lucy 2009

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: America is full of people like Wendy Carroll, the young woman at the center of director Kelly Reichardt's small, supple new film Wendy and Lucy. Read more

Ben Mankiewicz, At the Movies: [With] very basic storytelling, we've got to be given a reason to care and it never happens. Read more

Amy Nicholson, I.E. Weekly: Older audiences are hailing this slim story of a hand-to-mouth transient limping her way to Alaska as an insight into Gen X's unmoored ennui. It's like they've watched The Kite Runner and now think they understand Afghanistan. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: [Director] Reichardt has an excellent sense of proportion: She doesn't try to do too much, but what she does do is fully realized. Animal-lovers are hereby advised to bring the Kleenex. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Deliberately paced -- slow, even -- it's nevertheless an amazing, timely parable for increasingly desperate times. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Given the woeful lack of inner life for young women in American movies, Williams's single gesture of fatigue and partial defeat in Wendy and Lucy is momentous. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The climax is a heartbreaker, and in its haunting finale the movie recalls no less than Mervyn LeRoy's Depression-era classic I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: Wendy and Lucy is a short, sweet film with a premise as plain as they come: A girl and her dog drift into town. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: It's a resonant little mood piece that packs a great deal into a small compass. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Wendy and Lucy is quiet, deliberate filmmaking. See it knowing you will witness an idiosyncratic take on storytelling by a fundamentally independent filmmaker. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: The very definition of a small film, Wendy and Lucy nonetheless packs some serious wallop thanks to a quietly extraordinary performance by Michelle Williams. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Wendy and Lucy is like Lassie Come Home directed by Antonioni. Read more

Hollywood Reporter: Michelle Williams does her best but she cannot prevent Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy, a weak tale about being broke and on the road in rural America, from dwindling into boredom. Read more

Sam Adams, Los Angeles Times: Evanescent and intangible, it dissolves into the air, leaving something tragic and mysterious behind. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Within the confines of this minimalist (with a microscopic m) picture, there are sequences so vital, timely and of-the-moment, so powerful and well-observed and precise, the effect can be emotionally overwhelming. Read more

Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic: In happy sum, Reichardt is one more of the current American directors, most of them still young, who are endowing our film world with pleasure and hope. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: The movie, for all its morose impassivity, is beautiful and haunting. Read more

Mark Jenkins, NPR: Wendy and Lucy is too laconic to be mistaken for a social drama, but it's set in a land whose harshness seems to a require a stronger critique than Reichardt's vignettes. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Like a worst-case-scenario, indie-movie cliche, Wendy and Lucy throws every bone it can at the screen Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Reichardt, who directed Old Joy, doesn't so much tell a story as paint a finely detailed portrait of human suffering in this miniature marvel. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Wendy and Lucy takes place mainly outdoors and registers the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest with unostentatious affection. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: To her credit, Ms. Reichardt never allows her camera to become a voyeuristic witness to a young woman in distress. Instead, it remains focused on a largely indifferent American landscape of strangers in perpetual motion to nowhere. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Williams and Patton and the folks of this corner of Oregon serve up a slice of "indie" that, if it doesn't reach the level of "inspires," at least feels timely and true. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Thanks to an extraordinary performance from Michelle Williams and an exceptionally deft hand from her director, this low-budget and loping little film is a genuine heartbreaker. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: For all that the plot is minimal, it provides a non-judgmental look into the life of a woman who, while not undergoing a life-or-death ordeal, is facing something no less soul crushing. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy is another illustration of how absorbing a film can be when the plot doesn't stand between us and a character. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Simple story, beautifully told. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Reichardt seems to be challenging us to ask ourselves questions that the occluded, stricken, mysterious Wendy can't or won't ask. Questions like: How did we get here? And what do we do now? Read more

John Hartl, Seattle Times: Whether she's warily cleaning up in a service-station restroom, or staring at the trains that offer a different travel option, or establishing her rapport with Lucy, Williams bravely explores the soul of a creature who's both gentle and determined. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Wendy and Lucy -- a film that might have seemed faintly academic six months ago -- becomes an anxious expression of its historical moment. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Wendy and Lucy, a minimalist character study starring Michelle Williams, is a deft, compact piece that makes every shot and moment count. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The second coming of the Great Depression already has a version of The Grapes of Wrath. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Such is the resonant magic of Kelly Reichardt's remarkable little film, one of those exercises in minimalism where every word matters, every shot counts, until the kernel expands and a whole world emerges in 80 brief minutes. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Director Reichardt appears to owe a debt to the Dardenne brothers' similarly themed, Palme d'or-winning Rosetta, getting her intense effects from the point-of-view camera as much as from Williams's strong performance. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: The victories and insights gained in Wendy and Lucy are hard-won and small in stature, but they linger on the mind. Read more

David Jenkins, Time Out: This brilliant, desperately sad Steinbeckian fable from American director Kelly Reichardt. It's Reichardt's third full-length feature ('Old Joy' was in cinemas last year), but only her first masterpiece. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Told sparely and with deliberate pacing, it's a profoundly tender, deceptively simple story. Read more

Scott Foundas, Variety: A modest yet deeply felt road movie about an idealistic young drifter, her faithful canine and the wide-open spaces of the Pacific Northwest. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: Modest but cosmic. Read more

John Anderson, Washington Post: For all its virtues, Wendy and Lucy seems like the most overrated of art movies. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: In a minimalist film of muted emotions, Michelle Williams gives as lovely a performance as a moviegoer could ask for. It's a portrait of a life going grievously wrong, or one that's never been right. Read more