Showing Up

Are you an artist? Do you have impostor syndrome? Does it feel like everyone is getting on with their lives except you? Well, let me tell you: IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD.

This movie has taught me that in adulthood we accept one another as we are. Just like Jo accepted Lizzie.

This movie has taught me that things take time.

This movie embodies the weakness and fear inside all of us. The voice that doesn't speak up and piles up thoughts upon thoughts upon thoughts.

If anxiety and calm had a baby, it would be this movie.

I don't recommend watching this. Great performances from all the actors. But that's about it.

Lizzy (Michelle Williams) is a sculptor working to set up her show. She works at a small art school run by her mother Jean (Maryann Plunkett). Her father Bill (Judd Hirsch) has a couple living at his house. His brother Sean is unstable. Her co-worker Eric (André 3000) is firing her works in the kiln. She has a love-hate relationship with her friend-landlord Jo (Hong Chau).

It's a minimalist portrait of an artistic life and her little everyday tribulations. It's not the most earth-shattering plot. It's a look inside a stressed-out woman's life. It's Michelle Williams being naturally compelling. Hong Chau delivers another great performance. The art school is very specific. It's not a movie that is so quirky that it's hilarious and it's not so dramatic that it's heart-wrenching. It's the simple drama of an artist.

So if you've ever been around artists or the art world you know that there isn't a whole lot of drama unless the artist in question has issues. There's a lot of "hurry up and wait" as artists paint, sculpt, shape or just cerate in some way shape or form.

And this film is all about "Showing Up".

Like I've said in other reviews, films, mostly American films, are about showing characters facing adversity, overcoming said adversity, and growing for it. Or becoming more whole people. American films are all about therapeutic sessions for the movie going masses. In other words this isn't plot driven, but character driven. And as much as I appreciate slow films, this one had me on the verge of walking out.

Part of the reason is that SF's Metreon Number 2 theatre is partially out of focus. But aside from that the film just plods along from one small character encounter to the other. Until the sum total sees the patient, that is main character, have a break out moment. Suddenly they're cured and all is well, except that damn projector is still showing a fuzzy image.;

I didn't hate the film, but the promo said that this film was a captivating and hilarious look at the artist's world. Well, I at least didn't pay full price for the film, and unlike the PRC remake of Hichiko the night before, this film had a larger audience. But there was nary a funny moment in it, and what we're seeing is the viewpoint of the artist as they create art for a self expression finale.

Watching someone paint, sculpt, write, shoot film even, is boring. It really is. A lot of the dynamic goes on inside the neural network of the human brain, a thing we can't see. All we see is the artist rendering the final creation. It is akin to watching paint dry. And that's kind of what this film feels like. Watching the artist dry her paint as she walks from one vignette to the next.

That's intentional, but it sure made it a chore to watch for those unprepared. I expected something far more traditional and actually funny, not some slow plodding well shot and static character examination as per a psychological study. And for that alone I felt like writing a hate filled review because of my hatred for behavioral science.

BHut, it is actually a kind of endearing film, and accomplishes its goal in the end. There's nothing flashy here, just a slow paced well meaning film looking at the everyday life of an artist who finally stands up for herself, her art, and life in the end.

If for no other reason than its ability to do what Steven Spielberg could not, namely elicit a quiet, non hambone performance from Judd Hirsch, Kelly Reichardt's latest film should be commended. But there are other pleasures to be had in this tale of a frustrated artist in boho Portland, Oregon (by the way, Is there a non boho part of that city?), chief among them Michelle Williams' interpretation of the main character. I think we've all known a person like Lizzy, talented in their field but not talented enough to allay self doubt and envy of greater talents.(Think a kinder, gentler Llewyn Davis). It takes awhile for Lizzy's virtues to emerge but under Reichardt's sensitive direction and aided by her and co writer Jon Raymond's perceptive screenplay, Williams effectively peels away Lizzy's layers and lets you see the caring, sensitive person beneath the depressed, resentful person, so that by film's end we feel we know this good if extremely flawed individual. Wonderful character study which, again, leads me to muse on why this enormously gifted actor has yet to win an Oscar. Strongly supporting Williams are a number of actors with whom I was not familiar, especially Hong Chau as Lizzie's rival and bete noir, Maryann Plunkett as her checked out mom and John Magaro as her deranged, paranoid brother. Also worthy of mention is cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt who, like Williams, often works with Reichardt and whose camera beautifully but unobtrusively immerses us in the Rose City.

The film's main drawback is obvious and needn't be dwelt upon unduly. Reichardt's pacing, which will never be confused with that of Hawks or Bigelow, is at its most deliberate (read slow as hell) in this film. I can understand and sympathize with my IMDB colleagues annoyance with it. But if you can somehow adjust yourself to the director's contemplative, subdued rhythm you will be rewarded in the end, especially in the climactic scene at Lizzy's show where the tension, long held back, is palpable. More problematic for me than the slowness, actually, is the director's use of the too symbolic bird which, like most symbols in film and literature, I found both obvious and heavy handed.

Bottom line: Not as good as "Wendy And Lucy" or "Meeks Cutoff" (or even "Old Joy", for that matter) but well worth your time. Give it a B.

I've been a fan of Kelly Reichardt's other movies, notably "Wendy and Lucy" and "First Cow," but this one left me cold.

Michelle Williams plays a sullen and mousy artist who walks around in a fog of frustration over not having enough time for her art because of the demands of other people. I can get on board with a slow burn that reveals bits and pieces of a character's inner life that finally coalesces into something like a whole. But that doesn't happen here. At the very end of the movie, there are some moments that I liked and finally made me start to understand some of the circumstances that contributed to Williams's character being the way she was. But then the movie just abruptly ended, and the pay off was not anywhere near recompense for the tediously slow and border line boring movie that led up to it.

There is a running storyline with an injured pigeon that results in obvious and over used symbolism.

Grade: C+