Showing Up

The movie is about a sculptor, played by Michelle Williams, in the days leading up to a gallery show. That’s all it’s about, and yet it’s enough. The pleasure of Showing Up is in being dropped into this woman’s life and, more profoundly, into her consciousness.

In its minimalist quotidian way, Showing Up is a movie made by someone in masterly control of her medium.

Of its many brilliant aspects, the film does illuminate the numbing grind of real life when you’re trying to make art.

Showing Up is perhaps Reichardt’s most grounded and least impressionistic film, but it is still more than thoughtful and enjoyable and beautiful.

Achieving the gossamer profundity of one of Alice Munro’s short stories, her film is about the uninterrogated privileges success brings and the envy they can easily spawn.

As with Lizzy’s sculptures, which go into the kiln all mottled and damp but come out glistening with new layers of color, Showing Up is transformed by its finishing touches.

Showing Up may be a rallying cry to let artists just be artists — Reichardt is famously an artist in residence at Bard College, in large part to have health insurance — but she may have miscalculated how much compassion is generated by a supposed lover of beauty who is as cold and off-putting as her figurines.

With a light touch, this movie manages to expand and occupy more of my brain over time. It's funny how the brain creates tension around things that might happen. In that regard, it is almost a healing film because it puts the spotlight on the wandering, worrying brain. One of the main subjects of this film that drew emotional reaction ended up being an actual, inconsequential physical wounding. I loved how the shots of focused labor contrasted with the real-life-mode activities. There did seem to be a clear amount of token characters used and the poorly cast father doesn't look anything like his daughter, nor look young enough to be her father, nor know how to act realistically. These distracting factors were the only things that took me out of the film. So little is shown that the brain has room to obsess over what was seen, however I don't think the optimal point was chosen for dwelling on this level of content. After watching this film, I have realized a requirement of film-making. Every single scene must linger in the same place for at least a minute or two (subject to the amount of adrenaline forecast) for optimal long-term enjoyment.

Kelly Reichardt graces us with yet another slow cinema film, this time about a middle-aged sculptor (Michelle Williams) simply trying to live day by day without hot water in her house before her big artistic showcase. While Williams is fine in the lead, and supporting performances from Andre Benjamin, Jon Magaro, Hong Chau, and Judd Hirsch to name a few were nice to see as well, the film, much like its main character, lacks any true story/purpose or direction. While this has come to be expected from Reichardt at this point in her career, it lacks the same warmth and charm of some of her previous films, such as 'First Cow'. Overall, it's simply rather too slow, aimless, and ultimately forgettable

When I come across a film that’s the cinematic equivalent of witnessing the emperor’s nakedness, I feel compelled to shout it from the rooftops, something I would readily do with regard to this latest comedy-drama from director Kelly Reichardt. This plodding, insular, minimalist, frequently inscrutable offering tells the “story” (if it can even be called that) of a Portland ceramic sculpture artist (Michelle Williams) struggling to create her works for an upcoming gallery show when faced with the distracting burdens of mundane domestic crises and incendiary but largely unexplained family issues. However, little happens here, and the narrative is more of a showcase for the movie’s artwork than a vehicle with a definable plot, a problem further enhanced by a lack of any meaningful back story and solid character development (I guess that what they mean by “nuanced”). Indeed, one can tell when a release like this is truly in trouble when its most interesting and best defined characters are a housecat and an injured pigeon. The picture’s feeble attempts at humor nearly always fall flat, too, most of which are drier than dust (there’s subtle and then there’s inconsequential). It really troubles me when I see a seriously undercooked production like this undeservedly becoming widely acclaimed with over-inflated accolades. I’ve found this also to be the case with many of this filmmaker’s other works, but “Showing Up” represents a new low in her filmography. Not even the award-winning ensemble cast, with the likes of Williams, Hong Chau, Judd Hirsch, Amanda Plummer and Maryann Plunkett – the picture’s only noteworthy asset – can save this one from its own inherent failings. Experimental cinema is one thing, but unfocused, pointless, stream of consciousness filmmaking is something else entirely.

Nunca vi artistas plásticos tão chatos como os retratados aqui. No começo, de certa aversão à protagonista, uma pessimista e mau humorada artista que nunca está satisfeita com nada, reclamona ao extremo. Mas depois me deu até pena, porque os demais personagens são mais irritantes ainda. E é o tipo de história que vai a lugar nenhum. O melhor personagem é o pombo, o único erro dele foi não ter destruído as peças ao voar.