Wendy and Lucy (2008), is a snapshot in the life of Wendy Carroll, a young woman traveling from Indiana to Alaska looking for work. Her only companion on her journey, and, it would seem, her only friend in the world, is her golden retriever mix, Lucy. She runs into a string of bad luck, starting with her car breaking down somewhere in Oregon. She gets busted for shoplifting a couple of cans of food for Lucy, leading to a few hours in jail. When she returns, Lucy is no longer tied up in front of the store where she left her. Wendy immediately focuses all her efforts on finding Lucy. She walks across town to check the pound, puts up signs, and even leaves articles of clothing in various places she and Lucy passed through in hopes that Lucy will find the scent and return.
In the meantime, her car is towed to a nearby auto shop to be checked out, and the mechanic tells her that it is going to cost more than the car is worth to fix it. Wendy cannot afford the repairs, so she is forced to get rid of the car. At about this point in the film, Wendy finally gets some good news: Lucy has been found. She takes a taxi to the address given to her by the pound and finds that Lucy has been rescued by a nice foster family, with a nice house and a nice yard for Lucy to play in. After a few minutes with her friend, Wendy says a tearful goodbye to Lucy and sets off on the rest of her journey alone.
The film, written and directed by Kelly Reichardt, gives us very little information about Wendy's life prior to or following the events in the movie. We know that she has a sister who doesn't seem to trust her, and that's pretty much it. We don't know what circumstances led her to decide to go to Alaska, and we don't find out if she makes it there. But that's not the point of the movie. It's about the character. Its simplicity puts nothing between the character and the audience, so we're sharing her experience with her, and getting to see what exactly kind of person she is. Michelle Williams delivers a subtle, but still captivating performance as Wendy, showing just how far she's come since her Dawson's Creek days.
Though we don't know much about Wendy or her journey outside of this episode, Reichardt has obviously chosen a pivotal point in the journey to share. And not just because she leaves Lucy behind here, though that's a big part of it. Most of the people Wendy comes into contact with are fundamentally good, willing to help her out or cut her some sort of break, especially a parking lot security guard and the mechanic who looks at her car. Their displays of kindness offer Wendy (and, though her, the audience) some hope in the midst of a desperate situation.
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