Certain Women

Dir: Kelly Reichardt

2016

*****

I’m a huge fan of Kelly Reichardt’s movies and her 2016 film Certain Women was not a disappointment. I think she’s done exceptionally well in the last ten years since Old Joy came out but I’m still shocked that this is her highest grossing film to date. To be more specific, I’m not shocked at the fact (it makes sense that a film do better financially ten years later, particularly when you consider the all-star cast the movie boasts), I’m shocked that it is her highest grossing film to date and it made just over a million dollars. I know it’s an indie film but didn’t indie films become the new mainstream a few years ago? River of Grass, Old Joy, Wendy & Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff and Night Moves and still Certain Women only just makes a million? Something is very wrong in the world of cinema. I hope it made enough money in order for Reichardt to continue in the same vein anyway, but then many of the actors in her movies take pay cuts to work with her (because they know a good director when they meet one) so hopefully she’ll be alright. I might sound naive, because I am a bit when it comes to movie money, but I don’t want to sound condescending. I think it would be naive to think Reichardt’s limited success isn’t down to her sex and the sex of the larger percentage of her cast. Sexism is definitely still a thing, and it needs to be quashed. To think of a film in terms of ‘boy film’ or ‘girl film’ is nonsense but I think that is what is happening here. All of the main characters in Certain Women are women (the title kind of gives it away) but I (a boy crocodile), found myself relating to each one of them in some way. I’ll be honest, I can see why the story wouldn’t be to everyone’s liking, it’s true that there isn’t a distinct plot or narrative in the classic sense – it’s what drew me and most of Reichardt’s fans to the film – but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. The film is made up of three interweaving stories based on a collection of short stories written by Maile Meloy that appear in her collections, Half in Love and Both Ways is the only Way I Want it. The stories are largely separate except that they all take place in Montana and are all connected by at least one person, although not in any important way as far as plot is concerned. The first film sees Laura Dern play a Lawyer who gets roped into a hostage situation regarding one of her clients but it’s certainly not as sensationalist as it sounds. The second story stars Michelle Williams (in her third collaboration with Reichardt) and Jared Harris and is a little more complex but also far more subtle. It involves a married couple (Williams and Jared Harris) and their teenage daughter who are in the process of building their own house. The whole story is basically them trying to convince an old man and would-be neighbour to sell them sandstone but the old man doesn’t seem to want to talk to women. On first glance it may seem that very little is happening here but the interplay between characters and the subtle look at the differences between how male and female typically deal with certain situations. I would argue that no clichés were used in the making of this movie. The final story of the trio is a love story, a heartfelt and heart-breaking tale of one-sided love involving a farm girl and a young lawyer (played by Lily Gladstone and Kristen Stewart respectively). It is perhaps my favourite of the three and I would guess it was also Reichardt’s, seeing as it was last and all. Kristen Stewart has said previously that her usual approach to learning her lines is to memorize them as quickly as possible and then alter some wording to add idiosyncrasies to her characters. She was told by Reichardt in no uncertain terms that she would have to say her lines word for word, stating in an interview that "words are very important to her”. I’m sure Stewart took a pay cut to star in the film, and good on her for that, but it is Lily Gladstone who steals their story and indeed the whole film. Everyone is on good form but there is something uniquely special about Gladstone’s largely silent performance. Watching her drive her car for five minutes after an upsetting encounter is one of the best bits of cinema in the whole of 2016. Reichardt and Meloy are very similar in that they celebrate the ordinary people and empathize with their everyday problems that are insignificant to others. These simple themes are never covered, even though everyone can relate or empathize with them in one way or another. Cinema is escape, for sure, but it is also more than that, if we can learn more about ourselves and each other through it than it is defunct. It’s another faultless film from the director. I nearly cried when I saw that is was dedicated to her Dog Lucy, star of her 2008 masterpiece Wendy & Lucy. I found it to be uplifting, meditative, thought-provoking, somewhat comforting in an emotional sense and a fitting tribute to a good dog.