Showing Up

This director is known for making arthouse pictures that arent targetted at a mass audience. These are the kind of small pictures filmcritics love to watch, but I cant get excited about.

The bad: this movie is literally going nowhere. We get to see the mondane and boring life of an artist. We get to see her take care of a pigeon. Talk to her landlady etc. It's just one contineous lame uneventful portrait.

More bad: I started watching it for Michelle Williams, who has starred in some excellent pictures in the past. She can act! And although the purpose of her acting performance is to portray an uneventful life of a mundane artist, her performance didnt entice me for one second.

Only suited for fans of this director's work. Others better pass this incredibly tedious movie by...

That I guess was the goal here of this minimal-listic drama, not really any comedy here. A light moment here or there does not make it a comedy with me. With no clear hero or enemy in this film and character that are just tolerable but barely likeable. The narrative is not very strong nor is the writing. I understand what was going on in the film but the actors also did not make me feel anything, perhaps the only actor that moved me in any way was Judd Hirsch, who always delivers an amazing performance even though he didn't have much to do here. He always emotes and is a joy to watch. I noticed he was working again with co-star Michelle here which is sweet to see. When you have indie type filmmaking of this nature it is best formatted as a short; say 20- 30 minutes long. Then you really would have a real winner, I noticed in the credits that the director was also the editor. Very interesting and I like the indie style overall, lots of subtext.

This line from the movie is what probably describes it the best. Not much is said here. And the things that are said aren't that important even. It's the words left unsaid that makes this film work so well.

Hard to rate a film like this. I cannot explain why I loved this so much; I just know that I did. I am not sure what this movie was about. Loneliness? Commodification of art? Satisfaction? All I understood is that the pigeon was a metaphor for the lead character; a vulnerable and wounded bird unable to fly until it's healed and released.

One of those movies that lingers on your mind after it's finished.

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.

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+