Already perilously close to losing everything, Wendy hits a bigger bump in the road when her old car breaks down and she is arrested for shoplifting dog food. When she posts bail and returns to retrieve Lucy, she finds that the dog is gone, prompting a frantic search for her pet. The film is a poignant exploration of poverty and despair in America, capturing the range of defeat and desperation that comes with financial hardship. As Wendy moves among train-hopping punk kids, can-collecting homeless people, and marginally employed security guards in a rundown Oregon town, she battles to retrieve her missing pooch and overcome the realization that she has fallen nearly as far as an able-bodied, young, white American without a methamphetamine habit can fall. "Because I adore Kelly Reichardt's films for their political realism and careful camera work." (Sooner curator Eline Gehring) "Kelly Reichardt tells a precise story about the decay of a society and the only support it has: the relationship between humans and animals. A film that touched me deeply through its observational calm and closeness to the two main characters, Wendy and Lucy." (Sooner curator Isis Rampf) "Gorgeous and heartbreaking" (The New York Magazine)
Wendy, a near-penniless drifter, is traveling to Alaska in search of work, and her only companion is her dog, Lucy.
Already perilously close to losing everything, Wendy hits a bigger bump in the road when her old car breaks down and she is arrested for shoplifting dog food. When she posts bail and returns to retrieve Lucy, she finds that the dog is gone, prompting a frantic search for her pet.
The film is a poignant exploration of poverty and despair in America, capturing the range of defeat and desperation that comes with financial hardship. As Wendy moves among train-hopping punk kids, can-collecting homeless people, and marginally employed security guards in a rundown Oregon town, she battles to retrieve her missing pooch and overcome the realization that she has fallen nearly as far as an able-bodied, young, white American without a methamphetamine habit can fall.
"Because I adore Kelly Reichardt's films for their political realism and careful camera work." (Sooner curator Eline Gehring)
"Kelly Reichardt tells a precise story about the decay of a society and the only support it has: the relationship between humans and animals. A film that touched me deeply through its observational calm and closeness to the two main characters, Wendy and Lucy." (Sooner curator Isis Rampf)
"Gorgeous and heartbreaking" (The New York Magazine)