Certain Women

I've seen almost all of Kelly Reichardt's films and enjoyed them all, but they will never be mistaken for a Fast and Furious film. Her films are slow and contemplative, but nonetheless gripping because the situations are fraught with emotional tension.

Certain Women, a 2016 film, is based on three short stories by Maile Meloy, all set in Montana. The three stories are played out consecutively, with short codas at the end. They intersect only briefly, but are all set in the same world.

Each of these stories end with a whimper, not a bang. If you've been raised on typical Hollywood films you might expect more vivid endings, but they are not, and the message here seems to be that if you're lonely, deal with it, and life goes on.

The first story features Laura Dern as an attorney representing a man (Jared Harris) who wants to sue his employer for an injury. She's been telling him that he can't, because he's already accepted an insurance payment. When a man tells him this same thing, he accepts it, but tells Dern he's going to shoot up his workplace. Instead, he takes one man hostage, and Dern is called in to talk him out.

The middle story has Michelle Williams as a tense woman on a camping trip with her jovial husband (who we saw having an affair with Dern) and her sullen teenager. She wants to buy a huge pile of sandstone from an old man (Rene Aubernojois), and butters him up, while the husband (James Le Gros) undermines her efforts.

Finally, in the best story, Lily Gladstone plays a lonely horse rancher who seems to have no regular human contact. On a whim she attends a class at the high school, that turns out to be school law, taught by a lawyer, Kristen Stewart. Stewart has a four-hour drive, both ways, while holding down a full-time job. Gladstone becomes smitten with her, having dinner with every night after class and giving a ride on a horse. But when Stewart quits the job due to the long drive Gladstone is determined to see her one more time.

Certain Women is a display of the little things in life that we deal with. Granted, Dern's story is more dramatic, and involves a gun, but the other two stories are simply wrought, with simmering emotions--there's more going on in what isn't said that what is.

The performances are terrific. Harris, an Englishman, does an American accent for the first time I can remember and it took me a while to recognize him. Gladstone, who won some awards for this performance, acts mostly with her face. There is a long scene in which she drives away with her last encounter with Stewart. Will she break into tears? What's written in her face speaks volumes.

Reichardt is not a director that is likely to tapped to direct the next Marvel film. She makes small, delicately filigreed films that don't make a lot of money (this one made more than a million, her highest grossing). But they deserved to be seen.