Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/A24
Showing Up is acclaimed director Kelly Reichardt’s eighth film, and it may be her best yet. The story of a quiet, sensitive artist as she overcomes personal obstacles as she prepares for her first small show, Reichardt crafted a film that is deeply affecting and—most surprisingly—very funny.
Michelle Williams plays bedraggled sculptor Lizzy, in her fourth collaboration with the director. When she’s not struggling to get her abstract art together for the show she is anxiously prepping, she is wasting away in the back office of a local arts school. Reichardt’s so-called “day job” is working as an artist-in-residence at New York’s Bard College, a small liberal campus that resembles the one where much of Showing Up takes place. In that way, this feels more personal than some of the director’s past work. (Those films include 2020’s First Cow and 2008’s Wendy and Lucy, Reichardt’s first project with Williams.)
Add in the fact that this is an artist making a movie about making art, and Showing Up may sound like a self-reflexive intellectual exercise. But it’s much less pretentious than that; in fact, it’s gloriously unpretentious. It’s an almost whimsical feature that leaves us rooting for Lizzy in all of her mini-quests: from wishing that Jo, her landlord/fellow artist (Hong Chau), would turn Lizzy’s hot water back to making sure her troubled brother Sean (John Magaro) gets to her art show okay.