A Film about Responsibility (Spoilers)

I finally got around to seeing this film after six years being reminded of it on the Filmspotting podcast.

I appreciate how IMDB explores Wendy's economical situation, the other characters' actions/indifference towards her and her resourcefulness and feminist undertone to fend for herself without a man.

But my interpretation of the film is about responsibility to oneself and to society vs. one's selfish pursuit for freedom and fulfillment (however vague). The Director has a lot of tendency to make movies about loners (Old Joy, Meek's Cutoff) who try to make a stand in society by themselves and finding cracks in their efforts, out of that desire comes out of a wanderlust for the road, the wilderness driven by spiritual or financial desperation back home (e.g., Wendy's hinted tension with her brother-in-law in Muncie or her tight-string budgeting to get to Alaska to look for a job),

But society forces us to conform to its rules and more importantly the station it assigns to us - Wendy tries to escape by going on the road, doesn't read the parking signs on a parking lot and her car doesn't start; she shoplifts at a grocery store and is caught by a overzealous young clerk, and then the manager is forced his hand to say "we have a policy..."; followed by the police station officer sighing to say the finger-printing "machine is gonna kill me, we're gonna have to do this again...", form-filing at the dog-pound etc. Ominous unfortunate events for Wendy's but really just flesh-composed society's absurd disregard for human life and compassion.

Like Wendy keeps a careful ledger of her projected and actual expenses/budget, we learn that we have to respect the rules of society to survive (birth, school, work and death). The limitations of human kindness ($7 and free cellphone use by the parking lot security guy, the supposed community of hobo's in the beginning of movie who end up talking about themselves) that force us to pay our obligatory debt/taxes to the society that bore us whether we like it or not,

This drives us further towards isolation and to pursue our individual vision in defiance of society , as Wendy does to do whatever it takes to find Lucy, in the middle of the movie, Wendy is desperately trying on a balancing act, between trying to maintain her dwindling financial prospects to get to Alaska, her vehicle that'll get her there, and her love for Lucy,

But in the end of movie, we end on Wendy accepting her responsibilities, perhaps not to society but to herself. She accepts the reality that she probably can't take care of Lucy anymore ("I'm sorry, Lucy; I lost my car") but need to continue on her journey to Alaska. Although her series of decisions to stay in town doesn't make financial sense, she really does fulfill her responsibility to Lucy throughout the movie. Although we don't know what will happen to her next and most likely more hardships she will have to face later on, but she is no longer desperate spiritually.