MAST D: Kelly Reichardt. U.S. 107 min. Sep 11, 12:15 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox 1 Sep 17, 12 pm, Scotiabank 3 Sep 18, 9:30 pm. Scotiabank 1. Rating: NNNNN
The texture and sensitivity of Reichardt’s latest intimate character piece will have you wondering why she isn’t more successful, while acknowledging that what she does is so precise and specific that she can never really be a mainstream smash.
Adapted from the short stories of Maile Meloy, Certain Women separates itself into three studies of women in and around the small Montana town of Livingston.
In the first, a single lawyer (Laura Dern) tries to help a frustrated client (Jared Harris) in the second, a wife and mother (Michelle Williams) wants to buy some sandstone for the house she’s building with her husband (James LeGros). And in the third, longest movement, a lonely horsewoman (Lily Gladstone) finds herself drawn to an exhausted lawyer (Kristen Stewart) teaching a night course in school law. If anything connects these characters, it’s a need to be seen by others the way they see themselves.
That doesn’t sound like the stuff of great drama, and I guess it isn’t. Certain Women is a film about tiny changes, or flashes of understanding that could take years to fully understand. (Oddly, you could say the same about Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson, another of this year’s best movies.)
After the period experiment of Meek’s Cutoff and the thriller experiment of Night Moves, Reichardt is back doing what she does best, creating elaborate portraits of the worlds through which her characters move. And by the end of the film, we know these people. We see them.
