Stark yet deeply hopeful, this minimalist, independent drama from director Kelly Reichardt struck a chord among critics and art-house audiences but didn’t go much further than that. Michelle Williams plays Wendy, a twentysomething vagrant on the way to some vague sort of new life in Alaska. She’s something of a wounded animal, so it’s appropriate that the other name in the title belongs to her canine companion. Plot kicks in when Lucy goes missing thanks to a stroke of bad luck. Reichardt understands that bad luck can be catastrophic when you live this close to the edge, and Wendy and Lucy is at its best when acutely capturing that sort of desperation.
