The world of independent filmmaking is one of radical removal from Hollywood templates. Tried-and-true stories of boy-meets-girl, odd couple comedies and tearjerker romance tend not to exist in the small, low-budget films of independent cinema, because there is much less money to be lost than with big-budget studio productions. This allows for more experimental films, nontraditional plot structures, on-location shooting and, importantly, diverse cast and crew.
Attention is slowly being called to the fact that the majority of mainstream filmmakers are male. After 88 Academy Awards ceremonies, only one Oscar has been awarded to a female director, and only four have ever even been nominated.
In addition, actresses have a much harder time being cast after they enter their 30s, while male actors do not hit their casting peak until their mid-40s. This plays into the disturbing trend of an exaggerated age gap between male and female lovers in films, with women acting opposite men who are sometimes decades their senior.
Kelly Reichardt’s “Certain Women” is a breath of fresh air from the male-dominated studio films racking up these depressing statistics. Not only a female-directed film, “Certain Women” features three female leads, two of whom are over 30: Michelle Williams, 36, and Laura Dern, 49. The third lead is — though the film’s billing suggests Kristen Stewart — is Lily Gladstone, who is Native American.
The diverse film also declines to conform to traditional storytelling structure, by presenting a story with an almost nonexistent plot.
Laura Wells (Dern) is a lawyer dealing with a sad and frustrating client (Jared Harris). Gina Lewis (Williams) is building a house in the picturesque country with her husband (James Le Gros). Jamie (Gladstone) is a lonely ranch hand caring for horses by day and developing an infatuation with a school law teacher (Stewart) by night.
The plot is so sparse that to say any more, or to reveal how these three vignettes are connected, other than their all being set during the same modern-day Montana winter, would give too much away.
Indeed, everything about the film is sparse; its color palette is one of faded neutrals — in the first scene of the film, Laura’s lover notes her sweater is “taupe.” Often the vast, pale Montana landscape pushes the characters into tiny corners of the frame, dwarfs them with blankness. The camera itself hardly moves and the actors hardly move within the frame.
There is even blank space in the dialogue: long pauses, focus on silent, barely mobile faces. It is an extremely quiet film, visually and audibly, as music is used sparingly as well.
The veteran actresses give excellent performances, but the real standout is newcomer Lily Gladstone. With perhaps the most straightforward story and least amount of lines of the three, she manages to convey intense emotion without breaking the hyper-realism of the film’s style. She is anything but melodramatic, but captivating in her silent solitude.
If one enters the theater hoping to be entertained with lively comedy, action or even tragedy, “Certain Women” is not the right choice. It does not bombard the senses or shock and awe, and so a viewer may not enjoy it in the same way one enjoys a Hollywood classic.
But “Certain Women” does not try to entertain; rather it depicts life as it is for these three women. These characters’ lives are not special because they have an arc, but simply because the film chose to observe them for a portion of a two-hour block. It does not ask the audience to like them, nor does it work to make them likable. “Certain Women” merely presents ordinary moments from the lives of certain women, as these ordinary moments could happen in any of our lives.
