It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I liked this movie for its minimalism and its characters. Its protagonist is a weak individual whose main source of emotional support is her dog. In the end she can't even protect the dog and leaves her with a better provider, thus leaving herself completely alone. This story is a kind of minor tragedy that emphasizes the downside of American individualism and what happens to a person when his or her support group collapses and they have nothing left. At the start of the picture Wendy's car breaks down and she meets the security guard that helps her push her car off of the parking lot. The guard represents the sole example of human kindness that Wendy experiences the movie. Wendy foolishly attempts to shop lift food for her dog and gets caught and sent to jail. She has to pay a large fine and her dog is gone when she is released. The rest of the movie is Wendy's search for her dog which she finds at the end. Her decision to leave her dog with the new owner is a personal tragedy for her because, as we see in the final scene, she is totally alone in a freight car facing a dangerous and uncertain future.I see this movie in political terms. Republicans that despise the poor and weak will hate this movie for the sympathy that it shows for Wendy. Most American movies emphasize strength or defiance in the face of injustice or adversity. The most that Wendy can do is cry in despair and cling to an improbable hope for the future. This is the core of the film's realism. Without a support group we are all like Wendy. The American myth of the rugged individual is a stupid lie.

Dear Kelly Reichardt,escapism is obviously not your forte. Wendy and Lucy, one of the surprisingly few films to come out of America about life during a recession, is a road movie lacking in any sort of excitement or shots of beautiful American highways. A broke woman (played by an almost anorexic Michelle Williams) is driving across the US to report for a job in another state. But her car breaks down and she loses her dog. Her unromantic struggle where there is no adventure but only an endless, tiring and boring fight against her own poverty and the cold-blooded systems in place forms much of the movie.There are hardly any people in the American small towns through which the woman drives. It is almost like a dead urban wasteland. The only queues are for people lining up to sell old bottles. That's how badly things have deteriorated. It is no wonder that crooked politicians want to bring in more people into Western nations in the form of immigrants.The film is completely devoid of any sort of narrative punctuation or shock value. So you would not find the woman seducing horny men or her indulging in hard drinking. Survival in the urban wasteland is boring. The bleak and rather dour visuals paint a picture of small town American suburbs as if a plague has descended upon them. Michelle Williams as the emotionally jaded and physically fragile young American woman fits the visuals and surroundings perfectly. Her relentless search for her dog in the face of ignorance and cruelty from the people around her tells a lot about the state of human relations in the modern world. Anyway, I like films with more escapism. I would have made this film differently. There isn't much wrong with your film I guess. But I am just a very subjective guy. I will check out more films by you, Kelly.Best Regards, Pimpin.(5.5/10)

Although this film can stand proudly on its own, its themes, rhythms and camera work are strongly reminiscent of Italian Neorealism in general and Vittorio De Sica's "Umberto D." in particular. Indeed, I was surprised to find that the script came from a story by the film's writer Jonathan Raymond, because it feels more like director Kelly Reichart's homage to those wonderful Italian films of the 40s and 50s where hope and despair walk hand in hand and grit replaces glamour.This is the story of a young woman and her dog, lost in the middle of a recession and stranded at the frayed edge of an apathetic country. The dog is good, but it is the young woman who steals the show. Michelle Williams is always believable and always interesting, and that's good news because she's on screen nearly every minute of this film.Since her role in this film, Williams has gone from strength to strength, and is arguably one of the most intriguing talents in acting today. It is to be hoped that we hear more from Reichart as well, because with "Wendy and Lucy", she has shown us a deft hand and a kind and caring sensibility.

Wendy is a young woman who takes out from Indiana in her old Honda Accord with the goal of going to Alaska where, she has been told, there are jobs in the canning industry. Wendy's traveling companion is her dog Lucy. In a small Oregon town Wendy's car breaks down, she is caught shoplifting, and she loses her dog. Without friends or family or a job what does this young girl do? That's the story, with few details left out.I usually like quiet movies, but this one proves that I have my limits. My irritation with the movie and with Wendy began from an early scene that is a long take simply of Wendy walking along with Lucy while humming a nondescript tune. That scene went on so long that I thought it would resolve into something of import, but in fact it merely presaged many such scenes. Perhaps these scenes are there to show how rootless and adrift Wendy was, but I got enough in the first scene. So, a good part of the movie has Wendy walking around while another significant chunk is spent on Wendy's wandering all over the town and countryside yelling "Lucy," after her lost dog. The damn dog was clearly taken, leash and all, from the bike rack. Wendy's interminable and fruitless calling out grated on me to the point that I almost bailed.I got so frustrated with Wendy's bad decisions that I wanted to scream at her. Her first bad decision was to undertake the trip in the first place. If she was desperate enough for work and ambitious enough to undertake the trip, surely she could have vectored her desire for work and her energy in a more constructive way. OK, young people do impulsive, stupid things, but rarely do they persist in the face of the stark reality that Wendy was up against. I was equally irritated by the people that Wendy dealt with. Why didn't one of them at least try to talk to her about her situation--it was clear that she was at sea. Wendy was neither a druggie nor mentally ill. If you came across such a non-threatening, attractive young woman in such straits, would you not at least want to see what you might do to help? Is the safety net in the US so weak that there was no social service that could be called upon? The friendly security guard has nothing but my scorn. He saw exactly what was happening and what did he do? In a guilt-appeasing magnanimous gesture he solemnly handed Wendy six dollars.The ending can be nothing but depressing. From Wendy's walk in the woods we see that it is autumn, and she is heading to Alaska with no suitable gear, not even a sleeping bag. Does she have the personality or wits to survive? I think not. Within a few days or weeks she will be homelessness or dead--take your pick.I like Michelle Williams and she does give this loser a good try; her performance is a positive.