Wendy and Lucy

In class last Thursday we watched a movie called Wendy and Lucy.  At first I wasn’t sure what to expect, but when we finally began to watch the movie, I was drawn into the story.  The story is very raw and realistic, and definitely makes a statement about one element of society that is typically not focused on in major Hollywood style films.  I think that this film really addresses a major social problem in society, which is poverty.  It tells the story of a poverty stricken woman named Wendy, and her journey to Alaska.   The story literally follows Wendy through her days in a town that she was “Just passing through”.  We are shown everything that happens to Wendy, and we also see the sacrifices she made in effort to preserve her life.  We watch her sacrifice her money, loose her car, her dog, and calculate her money after every transaction.  This movie really lets you see first-hand how bad poverty can be.  In today’s economy almost everyone is hurting financially, people are struggling to pay bills and are working more and barely making ends meet, and these people actually have jobs.  Imagine how bad it would be if you were homeless, no job, hardly any money, and no family.  We tend not to look outside of our own little bubbles and focus on how bad we have it, when in reality there are people that are living in much worse conditions.  This film really makes you think twice about what you have, and forces you to realize that one day, you may lose it all.  This film definitely brought a (TON!) of tears to my eyes.   It was interesting to see poverty through a young woman’s eyes, things become more real (for me at least), when I see someone who near my age group going through this hard time.  When I heard that the film maker said that the movie was not supposed to be political, it dropped a few points on the creative scale, in my mind at least.  When watching the film I strongly felt that main idea of the film was to make a statement about poverty in America, the political viewpoint made it more interesting.  Knowing that this was a just a personal film made it a little more lackluster for me.  I thought the film maker was trying to creatively send a message, but I guess not.

Overall, if you’re looking at this film from a political viewpoint, it’s amazing.  But if you are looking to watch it for kicks there really isn’t much going on for it, in my opinion.