Certain Women (2016)
Directed by Kelly Reichardt
Three strong-willed women strive to forge their own paths amidst the wide-open plains of the American Northwest: a lawyer forced to subdue a troubled client; a wife and mother whose plans to construct her dream home reveal fissures in her marriage; and a lonely ranch hand who forms an ambiguous bond with a young law student.
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What critics compared Certain Women to
Viewers accustomed to the knotty “Short Cuts” school of multiple short-story adaptation may take a while to acclimatize to the film’s patient, clean-edged structure, which opts neither for explicit chaptering nor for intricate braiding of the three stories in question.
It’s why comparisons with Robert Altman’s Short Cuts, which have come up in various reviews, don’t quite fit.
Imagine a version of Robert Altman’s Short Cuts that didn’t weave its individual tales into some ensemble tapestry, instead simply offering a few acute approximations of Raymond Carver’s voice.
Though Granik’s approach is reminiscent of the sensitive, stripped-down style of Kelly Reichardt’s work (“Wendy and Lucy,” “Certain Women”), by reteaming with Scottish cinematographer Michael McDonough (who shot not only “Winter’s Bone,” but also Terence Davies’ radiant “Sunset Song” and the gritty prison drama “Starred Up”), she creates a richer visual environment in which to dwell.
In a way, Gladstone's performance expands on her memorable breakthrough in Kelly Reichardt's Certain Women, where her farmhand character's unrequited yearning for a night-school teacher played by Kristen Stewart evoked complex feelings about identity and ethnicity.
She's been one to watch since Certain Women back in 2016, but the emotional, physical, and spiritual journey of this character is eye-opening, and she doesn't miss a step.
And then there’s Gladstone, an actor with incredible talent who has not had the opportunities she deserved after a superb breakout performance in Kelly Reichardt’s 2016 indie movie Certain Women. When Gladstone is on screen, her magnetism is unwavering. It’s as if she’s baring the soul of the character she embodies and we can feel everything Mollie is feeling, all that loss, betrayal and strength.
Ernest, who married Native Osage Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone, "Certain Women"), would find himself seduced into Hale’s increasingly blatant hits on the wealthy Indians who owned the headrights to the oil discovered on their reservation at the turn of the century.
Ernest genuinely falls for an Osage woman, Mollie ("Certain Women's" Lily Gladstone), but any innocence to their love affair is supplanted by festering greed as William uses Ernest as a chess piece in his quest to rid her of her fortune.
Soon to be rechristened Mrs. Burkhart (“Certain Women” breakout Lily Gladstone, an undeniably major talent), Mollie may be “incompetent” under the eyes of the white man's law, but she can't even say that word without betraying the bitterly ferocious intellect of someone who knows the score, recognizes that she's being played, and has reluctantly accepted the fact that her people have few alternative options.
Stewart's transformation into an art-house and critics' darling has been well-documented, from the meta-commentary of her roles as celeb assistants in Olivier Assayas's Clouds of Sils Maria and Personal Shopper to her part as a queer object of desire in Certain Women.