Compulsion to Create

Showing Up (2022) - Reichardt Michelle Williams plays Lizzy in this wry comedy about perseverance of artists and their compulsion to keep on creating, directed by Kelly Reichardt (First Cow, Certain Women). Showing Up is as guileless and minimalistic as usual with all Reichardt’s films and conveys so acutely what it is like to be middle-aged working artists who struggle with self-doubt, professional jealousy, social ineptness, etc., yet keep chugging along, because creating art is the only thing they know.

Lizzy is a frumpy sculptor who works at an art college in a woodsy small-town Oregon. She has a new art show coming up at a small gallery in town but having a hard time concentrating on her work, because life keeps getting in the way – her landlord Jo (Hong Chau, Watchmen Series), who is also an artist and preoccupied by her 2 upcoming shows and keeps delaying fixing the boiler. Lizzy's cat is intent on destroying everything she owns, her divorced parents are always pestering and ever so slightly trying to undermine her achievements in that typical parents' way.

We are introduced to a smalltown art community that exists in every quaint college town where everyone knows each other – Lizzy’s mom is also an administrator at the college and shares an office where she also works. There are annoying colleagues who are less than cooperative at sharing the workload and others she has hots for but won’t reciprocate her feelings back, and even worse, sleep with her nemesis number one, Jo.

Many films on art and art-making, the centerpiece is usually the art itself. In those films, we are reminded of the transformative power of art and the suffering the artists must endure to produce such sublime masterpieces that inspire us all. In Reichardt’s film the art itself is secondary. The perserverance of their creators is.

Williams embodies this down and out creative person without all the backstories written down for her. It’s in her dour mannerisms. It’s in her unsmiling expressions. It’s in her pair of white Crocks and her baggy sweatpants. It’s in her stares of envy when she sees Jo’s large installation pieces.

Andre Benjamin is great as a hunky colleague from the school, so is Judd Hirsh as somewhat famous artist dad who is very supportive, so is Maryann Plunkett as judgmental mom. Hong Chau shines as Jo, a self-confident talented artist who is better in every department in life than Lizzy. But however different they are, at their stages in life, there is a mutual admiration for their craft because no matter what, they share the same compulsion to create.

Unlike the cynical satire of Art School Confidential or Ghost World, where every art school cliché is closely examined and made fun of, Showing Up is stripped down to concentrate on the act of creating. When we were young and in art school, we all thought that we were going to be a famous artist someday, having our work shown in New York galleries and become rich and famous. Some of our peers did become successful in their careers, but most of us didn’t.

As we grow older, us creative types take day jobs to make a living, and do our art on the side. We discuss and lament about not choosing the more lucrative professions, whatever that might have been. We lament about us getting close to making it. But as luck would have it, we didn’t while others did. There’s certain melancholy associated with that. But we don't dwell on that anymore. Life goes on.

Showing Up is emblematic of small pleasures we get from our creations that success doesn’t measure in fame and fortune. It’s self-satisfaction of showing up every day to your studio (or basement, or shed, or garage) and create.

This perserverance manifests itself in the form of a pigeon who was attacked by Lizzy's cat and taken in first by Jo, because of course, she knows how to fix the broken wing of a pigeon, then handed down to take care of by Lizzy, who secretly feels guilty. But the bird wouldn't die! And finally flies away at Lizzy's art show opening night.

Funny and light yet packed with so much daily life wisdom with great, natural performances by everyone involved, Showing Up continues to showcase Reichardt as a unique voice in American film scene.

Kelly Reichardt's Back in Form with Certain Women

Certain Women (2016) - Reichardt

Certain Women signals that American indie auteur Kelly Reichardt is back in form.

In my opinion, Night Moves, her attempt at an eco-thriller starring Jesse Eisenberg and Dakota Fanning, was a small misstep in her otherwise spotless filmography. Her strength lies in her minimalist approach to depicting the inner lives of lonely people inhabiting her beloved Pacific Northwest, not in complicated plots or building up tension or presentation of violence.

If her newly restored/rediscovered debut film Rivers of Grass gave a nod to Bonnie and Clyde and old noir films, with Certain Women, Reichardt does Altman -- an ensemble cast and loosely connected stories, based on short stories (by a Montana Native, Maile Meloy). But it's still very much Reichardt's film: with muted tones, a sense of melancholy and loneliness, Certain Women excels at dramatizing small, minimalistic character studies that are distinctly small town Americana. Also, many of her films placed women in precarious situations to observe, but I think this is the first time that she is exclusively telling women's stories.

Three slightly interconnected stories, taking place in Montana -- still very much Reichardt's territory -- feature Laura (Laura Dern), a small time lawyer; Gina (Michelle Williams), an overachieving professional and wife/mom; Beth (Kristen Stewart), a newly minted adjunct teacher of a nighttime adult education class; and Jamie (Lily Gladstone), a ranch hand who has a crush on her.

Laura's story has to do with a client of hers, a disgruntled mechanic (Jared Harris) who was injured at the job, but took an early settlement. So he can't sue his former employer. He keeps coming to her office, asking her to check his file again and again. Until she takes him to another lawyer for the second opinion on the case, fully knowing that the other lawyer is going to tell him what she's been telling him for months: he doesn't have any recourse; he lost.

Harris gives an extremely sympathetic performance as a man who has lost everything because of his injury and is trying to hold on to some kind of human connection. Because Dern is attractive, attentive and warm, and because he's lonely and desperate, he just wants to prolong their futile if sexist relationship. The hostage situation ensues. It is beautifully drawn by Dern, who deftly handles sexism without losing her humanity and compassion.

Gina, a high-strung woman married to a mild-mannered, less assertive husband (James Le Gros) and an unresponsive teen daughter, is trying to build a new house for her family. She wants to have a good foundation and is attempting to ask a local kook, if he could sell her a pile of historical sand stone bricks on his otherwise barren lot. The old man doesn't like her sassy attitude and her husband isn't helping much to persuade the man.

Her attempt at building a harmonious family is failing and as we the audience know something she doesn't, it involves her husband. It's delicate, fine-tuned, unhurried storytelling and all the actors involved are fantastic. Michelle Williams might play the least sympathetic character of the three, but she does a very convincing job as a tough businesswoman who has to act a certain way to survive, never letting her guard down.

The most poignant story follows Jamie, a lonely horse ranch hand in the remote town of Belfry. She leads an uneventful, repetitive life, looking after horses day after day. One night she follows some folks into a classroom and meets Beth, a brand spanking new teacher on her first day, reading off an index card full of information on school laws.

She is instantly attracted to Beth and they go to a local diner before Beth drives off to Livingston, a two-hour commute she has to make every Tuesday and Thursday. The only reason Beth, a law school student who also works at a shoe store, took the job is because she thought she got the job at Belgrade, about thirty minutes from Livingston, not Belfry.

Now Jamie has something to anticipate. Their brief late night diner encounters become some kind of ritual, at least for Jamie. They have a moment when Jamie takes Beth to the diner on a horseback. But Beth doesn't show up for the next class and Jamie is told that due to a long commute time, Beth is no longer coming back. On impulse, Jamie drives up to Livingston the same night, in the hopes of seeing Beth again.

Stewart, who's been shedding her teen-idol image by choosing various interesting roles, continues to impress here, playing a straight-laced, awkward young woman whose presence is still magnetic. But she takes a step back, allowing clear-eyed Lily Gladstone to shine in her role. Gladstone's depiction of an ordinary woman with a crush and heartbreak is beautifully realized. Her silent gaze alone speaks volumes.

With the exception of the presence of cell phones, Certain Women has that distinctive, melancholic, 70's American movie vibe. Reichardt masterfully draws these sad and poignant human encounters with the help of director of photography Christopher Blauvelt, who has collaborated with her since Meek's Cutoff, lensing underpopulated, Ed Hopper-ish small towns and the beautiful scenic vistas of Montana. Perfectly tuned for its quietude imbued in loneliness and longing, Certain Women is certainly one of her finest films to date.

Certain Women premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and will open in select theaters in the U.S. on Friday, October 14.

Manifest Destiny in Smaller Scale

Meek's Cutoff (2010) - Reichardt

I bet Kelly Reichardt has had several infuriating experiences sitting in the passenger's seat of a car driven by male drivers who suffered from 'never-ask-for-directions-when-lost' syndrome and been wanted to make a movie about it. This slight anti-western takes place in Oregon Trail in 1845. Three ox-carts driven pioneer families- the Tetherows (Will Patton, Michelle Williams), the religiously inclined Whites (Shirley Henderson, Will Huff) and the young Gatelys (Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan) with a blowhard guide named Meek (the great Bruce Greenwood, buried in stringy hair & beard and sounding like beetlejuice) get lost in the arid surroundings.


Stephen Meek is a quintessential foolhardy outdoorsman- arrogant, irrational and full of vanity. Soon the band picks up on Meek's bullshit, especially Emily Tetherow. She lets her displeasure known. He then asks her opinion on his philosophy about man and woman: "Woman is chaos and man is destruction." Emily answers with "I'll have to think about it." Whether Reichardt believes this to be true or not, in the end, it's Emily who becomes in charge of their destiny.


The drinking water is running low and the pioneers start dumping family heirlooms to lighten the load. The tension amongst them doesn't actually materialize until they capture a spying Peyote Indian (a violent savage, according to Meek). Meek wants to kill the savage right away but the Tetherows want to keep him alive since he might lead them to where the fresh water is. Gately girl (Kazan) takes the role of 'the one that goes crazy in the wilderness'. Ok, this being Reichardt movie, known for her minimalist aesthetics, nothing on the screen is too dramatic. Even Emily (with her bonnet tightly around her head, covering her facial expression most of the time- reminding me of a burqa on Muslim women) doesn't stand out much from the subservient the other two girls. Everything is understated.


Meek's Cutoff is a frontiers movie with a tinge of Aguirre. It's just a less dramatic take on manifest destiny. If Aguirre would register at 10 on the dramatic scale, Meek's Cutoff would be at about 0.5. But with good ensemble cast and beautiful yet pragmatic, mostly static cinematography and great tension creating soundtrack by Jeff Grace, the film is a quietly engrossing experience that doesn't provide you with an easy way out.

Falling Out of Love

Blue Valentine (2010) - Cianfrance

Documentary director Cianfrance examines a young couple's relationship, juxtaposing their sweet beginning with their falling out of love. Ryan Gosling plays Dean, a high school dropout underachiever and Michelle Williams plays Cindy, a med student from an upper middle class family. They share the common broken home background. In the beginning, it's a love-at-first-sight story, if a little too cliché involving abortion. 6 years later, Cindy has fallen out of love. With no one to blame and a lovely daughter in tow, the couple's marriage disintegrates. Both actors are endearing in those joyful and painful moments. Cianfrance's reductionism- focusing exclusively on the beginning and ending of the relationship, and no clutter of other characters to populate the couple's world, leaves the audience with deep, sad, beautiful sense of longing. I think it might have been better if he left the beginning of their relationship and the falling out part completely separate. But either way, I wanted more.