by Lorien Faulkner on March 30, 2009

Heath Leger, Independent, Michelle Williams, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, The Castaway, Tom Hanks, Wendy and Lucy

Premiering one week shy of exactly a year from the day Heath Leger died is a new film by Michelle Williams that eerily mirrors the turns her personal life took in 2008. Wendy and Lucy is a film of a young woman’s bravery and self-sufficiency in the face of extreme isolation and loss and her maternal desire to protect at all costs a dog who is her only loved one on Earth. To mention any further details of the plot would clearly be a spoiler, because the plot is short, uncomplicated and clearly not the selling point of this film. The focus is Williams herself and the raw, emotionally stunning performance she gives.

Williams is on every frame of this film. Other players, even the titled co-starring dog Lucy, are merely fleeting backdrop. Williams’ acting skill is the only hook holding the audience’s entire attention for the course of this otherwise bleak film, and amazingly she pulls it off completely. I could not look away even at times when the film felt boring or uncomfortable. Her performance gives a naked sense of voyeurism, as if the character of Wendy doesn’t want to be looked at and somehow feels the audience’s intrusion into these two pivotal days in her life. The only real comparison I can make is to Tom Hanks’ portrayal of The Castaway. Few actors could stand up to a task like this with no supporting actors, no driving plot, no special effects and only on the tool of their countenance build a interesting film. Williams and Hanks are clearly in a special class of performers.

Most film critics are agreeing with me. Williams was named winner of four awards for this film, including Best Actress in the Online Film Critics awards. Yet internet chatter seems equally divided between those who loved and hated the film. I always feel that a film edgy and divisive enough to be one blogger’s “Best Film of all Time” and the next’s bogger’s “Worst Movie Ever”, must have some real substance in it to be creating such strong emotional responses. Wendy and Lucy is such an extreme. It is heartrendingly sad and intensely frightening. Its central topic of our society’s treatment of the homeless will no doubt challenge the prejudices of many and place guilt-wounds in the values of many more.

The Oklahoma City Museum of Art is dedicated to showing truly artistic films that challenge their audience in just this way. They focus on showing inventive independent films like this that might otherwise not make their way into the Oklahoma market. Wendy and Lucy is a perfect choice for the museum’s spring season. Oklahomans who are looking for a film that is deeper and more unique than any you will see in your local multiplex should check the museum’s website for show times.

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