Wendy and Lucy Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.5

Wendy and Lucy Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov August 21, 2014

Kelly Reichardt's "Wendy and Lucy" (2008) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Soda Pictures. The supplemental features on the disc include an original trailer for the film; retrospective Q&A session with the American director recorded at University of Oxford; and Jon Raymond's short story "Train Choir". In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free.

And I will be waiting

Note: Wendy and Lucy is part of Soda Pictures' upcoming The Kelly Reichardt Collection three-disc Blu-ray box set.

They are heading to Alaska because someone told her that they need people there. She (Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine, My Week with Marilyn) plans to find a job, work hard and save as much as she can. Then she will start a new life. She might even find someone to share it with. But right now only her dog, Lucy, loves her.

They have been sleeping in her beat-up car because she is running out of money. She has been trying to eat as little as possible, but Lucy has been eating a lot. Now she needs to buy yet another bag of dog food.

Her car dies in a small town somewhere in Oregon. While waiting for the repair shop to open up, she heads to the nearby supermarket and steals a green apple and some dog food for Lucy. But she is caught by the stockboy (John Robinson) and then arrested by a mean cop. She begs the cop to let her take Lucy with her, but he does not want to hear about her friend.

A few hours later, a second cop takes her fingerprints and then a third cop tells her that she must pay a fine. If she does not and she is pulled over in another state, they will arrest her again.

They release her and she walks back to the supermarket, but Lucy is no longer there. She panics. When she calms down, she befriends a lonely security guard (Walter Dalton, Assassins) at the nearby Walgreens store. He urges her to be patient and wait for Lucy to be brought to the local animal shelter. But she can’t wait because she really needs her only friend now. Feeling guilty and sad, she begins looking for Lucy in a place full of strangers.

Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy oozes the heavy melancholy that is so prominent in Gus Van Sant’s early films but has the purity and simplicity of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s more recent films. Its poetic fluidity also reminds of Andrei Zvyagintsev’s work.

Yet Wendy and Lucy has a unique style of its own. There is sincerity in the way Reichardt’s camera observes the young girl that quickly convinces the viewer that she isn’t just another character whose path has been predetermined by a good scriptwriter. No, she really does exist and she is stuck in Oregon right now, while the camera is rolling.

There are also strangers who step in front of the camera and then quickly disappear without a trace. Like the girl, they have become shadows, simply existing on the outskirts of society. ‘Normal’ people can still see them, but when they do they try to avoid them because they don’t like the drama they bring.

This drama could have easily collapsed the film if Reichardt would have focused on it. It would have delivered a message that would have been impossible to tolerate. And not because it would have been insincere, but because it would have been redundant -- the images are already too powerful, too disturbing.

In 2009, Wendy and Lucy won Movie of the Year award at the American Film Institute Awards.

Wendy and Lucy Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Soda Pictures.

The film has the appropriate for a budget 16mm production gritty appearance but looks quite beautiful on Blu-ray. Depth and clarity occasionally fluctuate as Wendy moves from one location to another, but it is easy to see that all of these fluctuations are part of the film's visual design. Colors are stable and natural. There are no traces of problematic degraining or sharpening adjustments. Overall image stability is excellent. Also, there are no serious encoding anomalies to report in this review. Lastly, there are no large scratches, debris, cuts, or stains. All in all, this is a wonderful technical presentation of Wendy and Lucy that is guaranteed to make its fans very happy. (Note: This is a Region-Free release. Therefore, you will be able to play it on your PS3 or SA regardless of your geographical location).

Wendy and Lucy Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two standard audio tracks on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and English LPCM 2.0. For the record, Soda Pictures have provided optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature.

I viewed the film with the LPCM 2.0 track and later on compared select sequences with the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. The film has an organic sound design which does not benefit greatly from the 5.1 mix -- dynamic intensity is virtually identical on both tracks and there is no impressive surround movement. The dialog is exceptionally clean, stable, and easy to follow. I encourage you to experiment with both tracks and see which one you like better, but I prefer the LPCM 2.0 track.

Wendy and Lucy Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Kelly Reichardt in Conversation - presented here is a fantastic retrospective Q&A session with Kelly Reichardt recorded at University of Oxford in May 2014. The American director discusses in great detail the scouting process, the shooting of Wendy and Lucy, the framing of select scenes, etc. There are also some particularly good comments about Meek's Cutoff. The Q&A session is presented as an audio commentary (it runs throughout the entire film).

• "Train Choir" - Original Short Story by Jon Raymond - Jon Raymond is the author of The Half-Life, a novel, and Livability, a collection of stories. He is an editor of Plazm magazine and his writing has appeared in Bookforum, Artforum, Tin House, The Village Voice, and other publications. He lives in Portland, Oregon. Wendy and Lucy was adapted from the short story "Train Choir". This and "Old Joy" (adapted for Kelly Reichardt's film of the same name) both appear in Livability, which is published in the U.S. by Bloomsbury Books and can be purchased at Amazon.com. Presented here is the entire short story.

• Trailers - original trailers for:
  
  1. Old Joy
  2. Wendy and Lucy
  3. Meek's Cutoff
  4. Night Moves

Wendy and Lucy Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I consider Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy one of the very best American independent films to be released during the last ten years. It is incredibly well shot and features a truly sensational performance by Michelle Williams. The film is included in British distributors Soda Pictures' upcoming The Kelly Reichardt Collection three-disc Blu-ray box set, which streets on August 25th. I urge you to consider adding this box set to your collections. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.