Wendy (Michelle Williams) is living about as close to the edge as you can get. With her only pal Lucy the dog, Wendy’s headed from Indiana to Alaska, and by the time she reaches Oregon, she’s down to just over $500. It doesn’t take much to bring everything crashing down. Wendy’s creaky old car breaks down, she’s arrested for shoplifting dog food, and Lucy disappears. From that point on, Wendy encounters merciless bureaucracy and rules made for people with credit cards and telephones and permanent addresses.

In her previous Old Joy, Reichardt set her characters in nature, where the lush Pacific Northwest landscape felt like a lyrical counterpoint to the awkward fumblings of characters trying to connect. Wendy, by contrast, spends most of this film in a dying mill town, wandering from the grocery store to her car, from a convenience store to the city pound. Nature, though beautiful, is where you go to bunk down when you’re homeless.

Comparisons to Italian neorealism make sense (Reichardt cites Umberto D. as an influence), but you might also think of this as a modern-day version of The Grapes of Wrath, registering quiet rage at a system in which compassion can happen only on the margins and off the books.

Hank Sartin

Screens on Apr 5 and 12

See our Kelly Reichardt interview.

Read our other features:
Leader of the pack: Daniel Wu
Time regained: Wong Kar Wai
Presidential assassination: Oliver Stone
Van Dammage: JCVD

HKIFF Top ten list:
☆☆☆☆☆☆
Gomorrah (Dir Matteo Garrone)
Web exclusive: Matteo Garrone interview
Still Walking (Dir Hirokazu Kore'eda)
Hunger (Dir Steve McQueen)
Of Time and the City (Dir Terence Davies)
Web exclusive: Terence Davies interview

☆☆☆☆☆☆
Birdsong (Dir Albert Serra)
The Good, the Bad, the Weird (Dir Kim Jee-woon)
Web exclusive: Kim Jee-Woon interview
Revanche (Dir Götz Spielmann)
I've Loved You So Long (Dir Philippe Claudel)
Wendy and Lucy (Dir Kelly Reichardt)
Web exclusive: Kelly Reichardt interview
24 City (Dir Jia Zhangke)