Anyone else think it was going to turn into a Hitchcockian murder deal?

Ha, I've not only seen Wendy and Lucy; I lived it. Wendy and Lucy is perhaps the single-most underrated film of the last decade--and I am positive it's because the protagonist is female. In a strange way, it reminded me of Brokeback Mountain, in that poverty is at least as much the "third man" (or "third dog") as the need to simply keep one's head above water, to survive. (I find it homophobic rather than celebratory that Brokeback Mountain was hyped as a film about "gay cowboys.")

I again would disagree about Reichardt's emotional withholding, however. Her films strike me as almost...cruel? Would that be the word to describe the utter lack of backstory and dialogue? I'm not talking well-made scripts; I'm talking necessary exposition. Wendy is dirt poor. She is as emblematic of women in her situation as Mark and Kurt are of college-educated thirty-somethings in their situation. I think possibly Reichardt mistakes silence for naturalism. It may be that, but then there is also the matter of what a filmmaker owes an audience who pays to see her films. (Unfortunately for me, Meek's Cutoff was the first for which I had the opportunity to do that.)

And this isn't a quid pro quo; and it also isn't that people such as I complain about the exact quality that makes Reichardt great. It's a matter of human beings needing to communicate (in Wendy's case) pain-beyond-pain--at some point. Such a communication or expression need not be a scenery-chewing angst-fest. Michelle Williams absolutely conveyed a not-very-bright-but-very-sensitive-poor-anonymous-girl exquisitely.

All I'll say is that in the dark period when I was Wendy, I didn't make small-talk or hold forth in Shakespearian soliloquoys about the Lucyless end. I did however convey the void; and I do wish Reichardt had allowed more of that with her masterpiece.