MOVIE REVIEW: Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams reunite for SHOWING UP, a tale of middling artists.
But observation is not always enough, and that seems true with the perfectly presented but oddly hollow. Set in the world of small-time artists in Portland, it functions as a well-crafted portrait, but leaves wide open the question of why Reichardt chose this particular subject matter.
That she chose longtime collaborator Williams for their fourth film together is little surprise, this time casting her as Lizzy, a ceramic artist in the sub-subsistence level of creativity. She keeps body and soul together through a menial office job at the private art institute run by her mother , then returns to the home she rents from fellow artist Jo , who uses her own slightly more successful career as a good excuse to be a slumlord.
At times, Lizzy verges painfully close to pastiche, a shambling, grumbling figure in shades of grimy beige, as worn out as her yellowing Crocs. At others, she is genuinely empathetic, especially after she becomes caregiver to a wounded pigeon – a broken-winged intruder who swiftly becomes a window into the exact dynamics of her relationship with Jo.
The end result feels authentic, but oddly purposeless. Reichardt regularly cuts to the young, unnamed, and voiceless students at the art school creating their own works, tenderly ministered to by affable kiln tender/flautist Eric ; yet there’s never any real juxtaposition against the grinding mediocrity of Lizzy’s existence.
This is the creative industries as grind, but with oddly little appreciation for the perspiration. Artists involved in similar scenes may suffer painful pangs of recognition about the specifics of art life , but little beyond that. This is the cinematic equivalent of a great still life of a bowl of fruit: The technique is undeniable, but it's just a bowl of fruit.
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