Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt, 2022)

"Squandered time is squandered money."

Burn Gorman as Michael Jeffery in Jimi: All Is By My Side

Showing Up, Kelly Reichardt (2022)

Showing Up

directed by Kelly Reichardt, 2022

W A T C H I N G

White Noise (dir. Noah Baumbach) x WFF 2022.

Baumbach’s inspired adaptation of White Noise is a thrilling but scatological experience. By far his most visually and narratively audacious film yet, its dizzying sense of the American psyché circa the mid-’80s provides a strong but messy sense of literary déjà vu. The film’s biggest flaw is the manic literary material explored is so inherently meant for the page. Full of spectacle and stunning period production design, it’s an apocalyptic satire of catastrophic man-made disasters obsessed with the looming prospect of death and the search for an easy pill-form cure that does not exist.

Pósters Oficiales: White Noise

Pósters Oficiales: White Noise

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Showing Up (2023, dir. Kelly Reichardt) - review by Rookie-Critic

I am a huge Kelly Reichardt fan. Ever since Tucker Meyers let me borrow his copy of her second film, Old Joy, earlier last year I've been greatly anticipating whatever she decided to make next. When I saw the trailer for Showing Up the first time I was instantly hooked. Not only was frequent Reichardt collaborator Michelle Williams starring, but 2022-breakout star Hong Chau would also be playing a role. Set in an artist community in Portland, the film follows William's Lizzy as she navigates the week leading up to a potentially career-making art show. Between the hot water in her apartment being busted, worrying about her mentally unwell brother, and an incident with a bird, the week Lizzy needs to really focus on her work is thrown into chaos.

Lizzy seems to have a generally negative disposition, even when factoring in all of the curveballs life throws at here over the course of the film. It's understandable, and there are many scenarios in the film where I was firmly on her side, but at the same time you wonder if she's too much emphasis on the negative instead of just focusing and what needs to be done. At the heart of the film and the center of Lizzy's character is why I adore Reichardt's filmmaking so much. Her characters have a tendency to feel almost too real. They're the kind of people you could pass by on the street. That you see sitting in the car next to you at a stoplight, or are even just another face in the crowd. She creates these characters that very likely actually exist and just plops them down in the world, and this allows her to analyze life from the perspective of somebody that is purely relatable. Their flaws feel organic, which makes their mistakes understandable, and their personalities tactile (Reichardt's insistence on shooting with 35mm film cameras also adds an aspect of warmth and intimacy to the world and characters). We don't see the characters go through grand, life-altering change or growth, because that would be too grandiose. Instead, we see them change very slowly, sometimes the character growth is so subtle that they're not even done changing by the time the story is over, but merely set on the right path. It all just feels so organic. Maybe that seems boring to some of you, but something about the way she weaves her stories just clicks with me.

This film also continues the tradition in Kelly Reichardt's films of analyzing characters the are stuck in some way. Stuck in life, physically stuck or lost, stuck in a dead-end town, stuck in an unfair system, Reichardt loves viewing how different personalities react to their individual claustrophobia. Lizzy has herself trapped in a negative headspace of her own design. Again, some her grievances are well-placed, but it is so all-encompassing. Everything is against her in some way shape or form. I won't spoil the ending for anyone interested, but the way the title of the film works into the overall message of taking life in stride and being there for others is truly inspired and something I didn't fully get until the conversation with Tucker on the drive home. To cut myself off from rambling any more nonsense at you, I'll just say the Showing Up is a wonderful film and another feather in Reichardt's cap. It's hard to nail down exactly what about her films gels with me on a deeply fundamental level, but I haven't watched a film of hers yet that I haven't absolutely adored. If you have the patience for a slow-paced character study, I highly recommend this. It's been the second-most fulfilling film-watching experience I've had with a new film in 2023 next to Colin West's Linoleum.

Score: 9/10

Only in theaters.

Through the Decades: Edith Piaf, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Debbie Harry, Michael Stipe, Kurt Cobain, André Benjamin, Beyoncé Knowles, and Abel Makkonen Tesfaye.

Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt, 2022)

Teaser oficial de 'Ruido de Fondo' de Noah Baumbach con Greta Gerwig y Adam Driver

Mira el primer teaser oficial de 'Ruido de Fondo' la película que reúne a Noah Baumbach con Greta Gerwig y Adam Driver.

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Horror Movie Review: High Life (2018)

Horror Movie Review: High Life (2018)

High Life is a 2018 science fiction horror film directed by Claire Denis, in her English-language debut, and written by Denis and her long-time collaborator Jean-Pol Fargeau. A group of criminals serving death sentences are sent on a mission in space to extract alternative energy from a black hole. Each prisoner is treated as a guinea pig by Dr. Dibs (Binoche) for her experiments. Dr Dibs…

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Turn: Washington’s Spies as cursed Roblox images because I think I’m funny

fundamental amrev experience is being assigned the legend of sleepy hollow as required reading in your highschool english class and freaking out A. because it's by washington irving, who was discussed extensively in that one nancy isenberg essay about aaron burr's sexuality, and B. because it Won't Stop Talking About John André, who, of course, is john andré