Certain Women (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Certain Women (2016) – K. Reichardt

Director Kelly Reichardt’s films are minimalist in their approach to plot, with much time spent observing characters (in action or even doing not much at all).  She sets ideas in motion and allows viewers to invest psychological meaning into the events on screen that aren’t always clearly spelled out (perhaps are often not spelled out).  In Certain Women, Reichardt sets forth three minimal plots, the starting place for three stories that ultimately remain unfinished, focused on four women and their relations with others in society.  All the stories take place in a remote part of Montana with beautiful lonesome vistas.  Laura Dern is a lawyer whose client, Jared Harris, has been injured on the job and then manipulated into taking a settlement, thereby voiding his ability to sue.  She’s treated by Harris and others as though she isn’t competent and instead her relationship skills are highlighted (i.e., she’s stereotyped as a woman).  Michelle Williams and her husband James LeGros want to build a house (a second house?) and she is keen to use “authentic” materials in the construction, such as old railroad ties and some sandstone retrieved from a long-gone schoolhouse that they want to buy from lonely old timer Rene Auberjonois.  Her husband unintentionally undercuts her when talking to Auberjonois and also to their daughter, minimizing her needs or calling attention to her demands as requiring kid gloves or special treatment.  Here, women are placated rather than having their views valued and accepted.  Kirsten Stewart is a lawyer who accidentally agrees to teach a class on education law four hours away (near the Wyoming border) – another woman (Lily Gladstone) attends the class (although not enrolled) and strikes up a friendship (perhaps seeking more). Stewart is friendly but not responsive. Gladstone drives to Stewart’s town but nothing happens.  Both women remain unsatisfied by these encounters.  In the short stories by Maile Meloy from which the film’s sketches are drawn, the Gladstone character is male, which would make the potentially unwanted attention more explicitly sexist – but the ambiguity works in the mysterious and minimal contexts that Reichardt provides.  Indeed, we are led to be curious, to wonder what might happen, to think about the purpose of everything in the script – and the dots are rarely connected for us, even as the three stories threaten to come together at the end of the film (and don’t).  Perhaps these unfinished sketches could have benefited from longer running times (particularly the middle story) or some firmer resolutions, but there is no doubt that Reichardt chose to leave us suspended in thought with the hypothesis that these certain women do represent the (psychological) experiences of many women.