Wendy and Lucy is the story of a girl and her dog. Wendy, played by Michelle Williams, is on her way from Indiana to Alaska to find work. When we encounter her, Wendy is in Oregon with $525 to her name, a late-80s Honda Accord and her dog, Lucy. The entire movie takes place in an Oregon town where Wendy has become stranded when her car breaks down, she gets arrested for shoplifting and Lucy goes missing. And, life does not get much better for Wendy as the movie goes on and then somewhat abruptly ends.
Clearly, Wendy loves her Lucy more than anything else in life and really relies on the relationship with her dog to get her through the tough days of her life. While Wendy is resourceful and appears resilient, she is clearly scared on her journey; yet it is difficult to feel sorry for her. Her situation comes across as a bit self-imposed, but truthfully, we don’t know enough about her to make that judgment. We can understand her connection to Lucy, however, and we desperately want her to find Lucy.
On Wendy’s quest to find Lucy, she encounters only one person with a kind heart: the security guard at the local Walgreens. He appears to have seen hard times himself, and offers the use of his cell phone as a contact number for the pound. In one particularly touching scene, he offers Lucy money and refuses to take “no” for an answer. The sum of money he gives her: $6.
The movie is short, but difficult to watch. As I noted earlier, movies about homelessness are always difficult to watch: no one wants to imagine this kind of life for themselves. Additionally, there are suspenseful moments where we don’t know if Wendy or Lucy will be okay.
A word of advice to moviegoers: do not go see two movies about homelessness in one weekend. It makes for a depressing couple of days.
