In Kelly Reichardt’s latest film, a character declares, “You have to listen to what is not being spoken!” This observation holds true for all of the filmmaker’s previous films, not only the minimalist one from First Cow. Lizzie (Michelle Williams) is an Oregon-based sculptor who is striving to communicate via art, a passion that absorbs her to the point where the conflicting travails of family, friends, and coworkers just serve as aggravating diversions. Williams’ solipsistic protagonist, as she gears up for a career-defining display, may be described as exasperating. Reichardt, on the other hand, provides her with a second opportunity through an unusual ally: a pigeon, which Lizzie rescues after Ricky, Lizzie’s favourite cat, attacks it.
Wendy and Lucy fans will recognise the similarities between Showing Up and Williams’ co-starring role with a chimpanzee in Showing Up. But in this case, it serves more like a deus ex machina, awakening Williams and her peers at the Oregon College of Art and Craft (an actual college in Portland) to the possibility that there is more to life than their relatively esoteric interests. Showing Up, their fourth collaboration is one of the more fascinating films on offer at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Williams and Reichardt have built a strong and intuitive relationship between Wendy and Lucy through Meek’s Cutoff (2010) to Certain Women (2016).
However, like with anything related to modern art, the final outcome elicits a range of emotions. A long shot of Lizzie adding limbs to one of her table-top clay maquettes, directed by Reichardt as meticulously as ever, has us completely engrossed in her artistic process. Nonetheless, the film’s mostly contemplative tone is disrupted by a humorous subplot with her father (Judd Hirsch) being used by a couple of shameless freeloaders (Matt Malloy and Amanda Plummer).
Complicating matters, even more, is the fact that Maryann Plunkett, Hirsch and Lizzie’s mother, have an adult child (John Magaro) who has mental health concerns. The most telling interaction in the film is Lizzie’s with her landlord Jo (Downsizing’s Hong Khau), in which Lizzie’s frustration over a broken water heater serves as a metaphor for her worries that her younger, more well-connected counterpart is planning to leave her behind.
Although it aired late in the competition this year, Showing Up may not have had much of an influence. For fans of Reichardt, you will want to see this film when it is released in theatres. Showing Up does not have a release date in the United States or the United Kingdom.