NYFF: Certain Women
Tuesday, October 11, 2016 at 9:06PM Here's Jason reporting from the NYFF on Kelly Reichardt's latest.
Think of it as Pulp Fiction's second cousin, a wallflower who stands blushing at the side of the dance-floor - Kelly Reichardt's Certain Women does command swirling depths from its three interconnected stories; you've just got to take the time and have the patience to suss them out. But man, she dances if you do...
At first, there's awkwardness. In the film's first portion Laura Dern plays a lawyer (named Laura!) who negotiates both lunch-break trysts with married men and hostage situations with calm, cool befuddlement. Tonally this section's strange, lightly comic and sad, but then we're still getting situated. But the same way you knew before you even saw it that it was genius to match Reichardt with Dern you know, as it brushes off what you thought that would be, that you wanna push deeper.
And next up you really start to find out the peculiar and individual things about your new friend, not all of them agreeable. The second section stars Michelle Williams as Gina, a woman determined to build a cabin from reclaimed materials, emphasis on "determined" - everyone around her seems a little put-off by her strong will, while she in turn seems a little put-off by the role of "strong-willed woman" that everybody is constantly trying to foist upon her. There is still awkwardness but it's baked in by this point; more importantly it's beginning to take hold, and by the time we're watching Williams dead-on, staring at who knows, we're cooked.
By part three love, terrible love, stumbles into the picture. Red-cheeked and disastrous. Lily Gladstone (where has she been all my life?) plays Jamie, a horse-rancher who wanders into town on a whim and meets Beth (Kristen Stewart, marvelously defiantly distracted), a teacher giving a class she doesn't know how to teach and that Jamie doesn't need. Painful one-sided infatuation follows, with grand gestures and stilted half-oblivious conversation - but it's agonizingly sweet. Emphasis on agonizing. And it's over before it's begun, but you'll damn well never forget it.
The film relies upon an accumulation of effect - a pile-up of character and place specifics that inform and feed off one another until you're very nearly swept up with emotion. It's a surprise really, when it comes - when you realize how you're stirring. Certain Women hasn't screamed or bounced around the room - you have to peek in pretty hard to even catch on to its profound, but buried, sentimental connectivity. It's a stretch of Montana sky and highway that you have to drive, and drive, and drive, before you feel it, but it works its way deep into your bones.
Certain Women opens in platform release on October 14th.
previously at NYFF
Reader Comments (3)
I'm looking forward to seeing this one. The director's movies seem to have a subliminal effect, where part of my mind keeps ruminating over them for days after.
Whenever I read about Manchester by the Sea, I think why would I want to see that movie where the two most interesting actors, Michelle Williams and Kyle Chandler, are only support to the boring actor in the cast (Casey Affleck).
I like movies that hire great casts and then let you really look at them, like Reichardt does.
It's also refreshing to have a Native American in the cast with a decent part.
I saw this movie at Sundance, and by far the most arresting section featured Kristen Stewart (once again on a roll, and excellent) and Lily Gladstone, who is the film's MVP, IMO. I also found Laura Dern's storyline interesting but barely remember Michelle Williams' so the film is uneven at best. (Kelly Reichart is a true talent though.)
I have always loved Kelly Reichardt's films ever since I saw Old Joy in 2005. Bonnie Prince Billy's Kurt stayed with me emotionally for years. Then Wendy & Lucy came along and that was also sublime in its quietude. Tonally the film's melancholy perfectly complements Old Joy. By this time I have become besotted with Reichardt's dog Lucy who was in both films (and who sadly died recently). Then Meek's Cutoff came and although its period setting in the 1840s was temporally not in the same universe with Reichardt's released films, it also discussed the lost and wayward characters that seek to map out their world through social connections with strangers and random people, similar to the Lucy and Kurt. Michelle Williams was subtly effective in Meek's Cutoff but I thought she was poignant in Wendy & Lucy and in the ideal world should have been nominated. But no big and grandstanding scenes abound in Reichardt's films. Just the uneven rhythms of life of very ordinary people. Night Moves was a little different, but the ecoterrorists finding existential meaning in their lives despite having larger-than-life missions, are also emotionally and spiritually lost individuals who are just navigating helplessly in the ocean of unassorted human relations (may I also mention that this is one of the two films where I actually like Jesse Eisenberg's performance -- the other being the shattering Louder Than Bombs with Isabelle Huppert).
I can't wait to see Certain Women! I love Laura Dern and Michelle Williams and respect Kristen Stewart especially in Clouds of Sils Maria so I am watching this film no matter what. I am not familiar with Lily Gladstone's work but I wish there is a big push to have her part of the conversation among supporting performances if the reviews which unanimously claimed she was the strongest among the 4 actresses in the film, are right.
Now if Reichardt can rope in Huppert somehow in her film at some point, that would make me extremely happy.