Film ReviewsCertain Women
Dec 8, 2016 Anchorage Press
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Certain Women is director Kelly Reichardt's newest and most thought-provoking film in which Reichardt assembles a perfectly complementary cast: Laura Dern, Michelle Williams, Kristin Stewart and Lily Gladstone. Reichardt solicits extraordinarily subtle and solid performances from all four, delivering emotional intelligence with as little as the raising of an eyebrow or the twisting of lips. In addition, Reichardt raises women's issues in contemporary America through the protagonists' relationships and interactions with the equally-talented supporting cast that comprise the husbands, lovers and colleagues.
Certain Women takes place is small-town America, in Montana, just inland and north enough to capitalize on the remoteness and isolation while still drawing connections with the world outside. The film is beautifully shot; the long shots of open skies and places with vast distances between them are painterly. Even the close ups and interior shots are deliberate in their detail with some not taken, but rather composed like in a Vermeer painting.
Certain Women is undoubtedly beautiful, but solemnly beautiful at that, and requires viewers to watch attentively and with focus; as when viewing a great painting, watching the film takes time and patience. Reichardt edited the film herself, thus ensuring that every slow take is just right. As the visionary of Certain Women, she indulges in the leisurely pace of the film, not rushing, and making the viewer slow down to the pace of life in a small town.
Certain Women is based on Maile Meloy's short story collection, Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It. Like the tone of the film, Meloy's stories are introspective and delivered through a tight and controlled narrative. The film presents a slice of time and geography with a minimal plot, other than the goings on of a lawyer (Dern), her sex life and work as she manages a disgruntled client through a hostage situation. The stories are seen in an almost voyeuristic way and through a quotidian lens, even as it spills on to Gina's life (Michelle Williams). This makes the structure of the film interesting and while there may be a tendency to compare it with other films that use tightly-woven parallel stories to give the viewer a full view of plot and relationships, the stories in Certain Women are looser than that; they don't tie things up neatly or ever.
The cinematic device Reichardt uses is in the vein of Babel by Alejandro González Iñárritu, Three Colours Trilogy: Blue, Red, and White by Krzysztof Kie?lowski, or Amores Perros also by Iñárritu. Her use of parallel storytelling is set apart by her disregard for plot and instead relies on rock-solid character sketches that stand on their own.
Reichardt goes as far as changing the gender of one of Meloy's characters to better deliver the continuity of female strength in the film, thus making Jamie's (Gladstone) attachment to a young law student/teacher (Stewart) all the more complex.
In Certain Women, Reichardt reclaims her signature style of filmmaking she first delivered in Wendy and Lucy, which also stars Michelle Williams and takes place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. Only now-after proven herself as an accomplished director and leader of feminist filmmaking-Reichardt is able to draw gifted and sought after talent to her productions. Certain Women is personal, intimate and restrained. When the parallel stories intersect, they do so with gentleness, thus neither the viewers nor the characters know their true impact. Certain Women is poetic, like something Lord Byron would write, "She walks in beauty, like the night, Of cloudless climes and starry skies "
Certain Women shows at 7:50 p.m. on Mon., Dec. 12 at Bear Tooth.
Certain Women takes place is small-town America, in Montana, just inland and north enough to capitalize on the remoteness and isolation while still drawing connections with the world outside. The film is beautifully shot; the long shots of open skies and places with vast distances between them are painterly. Even the close ups and interior shots are deliberate in their detail with some not taken, but rather composed like in a Vermeer painting.
Certain Women is undoubtedly beautiful, but solemnly beautiful at that, and requires viewers to watch attentively and with focus; as when viewing a great painting, watching the film takes time and patience. Reichardt edited the film herself, thus ensuring that every slow take is just right. As the visionary of Certain Women, she indulges in the leisurely pace of the film, not rushing, and making the viewer slow down to the pace of life in a small town.
Certain Women is based on Maile Meloy's short story collection, Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It. Like the tone of the film, Meloy's stories are introspective and delivered through a tight and controlled narrative. The film presents a slice of time and geography with a minimal plot, other than the goings on of a lawyer (Dern), her sex life and work as she manages a disgruntled client through a hostage situation. The stories are seen in an almost voyeuristic way and through a quotidian lens, even as it spills on to Gina's life (Michelle Williams). This makes the structure of the film interesting and while there may be a tendency to compare it with other films that use tightly-woven parallel stories to give the viewer a full view of plot and relationships, the stories in Certain Women are looser than that; they don't tie things up neatly or ever.
The cinematic device Reichardt uses is in the vein of Babel by Alejandro González Iñárritu, Three Colours Trilogy: Blue, Red, and White by Krzysztof Kie?lowski, or Amores Perros also by Iñárritu. Her use of parallel storytelling is set apart by her disregard for plot and instead relies on rock-solid character sketches that stand on their own.
Reichardt goes as far as changing the gender of one of Meloy's characters to better deliver the continuity of female strength in the film, thus making Jamie's (Gladstone) attachment to a young law student/teacher (Stewart) all the more complex.
In Certain Women, Reichardt reclaims her signature style of filmmaking she first delivered in Wendy and Lucy, which also stars Michelle Williams and takes place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. Only now-after proven herself as an accomplished director and leader of feminist filmmaking-Reichardt is able to draw gifted and sought after talent to her productions. Certain Women is personal, intimate and restrained. When the parallel stories intersect, they do so with gentleness, thus neither the viewers nor the characters know their true impact. Certain Women is poetic, like something Lord Byron would write, "She walks in beauty, like the night, Of cloudless climes and starry skies "
Certain Women shows at 7:50 p.m. on Mon., Dec. 12 at Bear Tooth.