Weekend Movie Forecast: Che, Gran Torino, Doubt

Wendy and Lucy, directed by Kelly Reichardt (Old Joy), stars Michelle Williams as a desperate young woman attempting a perilous journey from Indiana to Alaska in search of employment, accompanied only by her dog. The Times's A.O. Scott writes, "At first glance Wendy and Lucy looks so modest and prosaic that it seems like little more than an extended anecdote...But underneath this plain narrative surface — or rather, resting on it the way a smooth stone rests in your palm — is a lucid and melancholy inquiry into the current state of American society.

"Much as Old Joy turned a simple encounter between two longtime friends into a meditation on manhood and responsibility at a time of war and political confusion, so does “Wendy and Lucy” find, in one woman’s partly self-created hard luck, an intimation of more widespread hard times ahead." Earlier this week, we spoke with director Kelly Reichardt about the film.