Wendy And Lucy is a tinycore mood piece about poor, struggling Wendy (Michelle Williams) trying to drive up to Alaska with her dog Lucy. Wendy is looking for work and has a plan, but to get to Alaska she has to stick to a strict budget with very little room for disaster. Unfortunately disaster strikes in a small town, when her car breaks down. This financial shock leads her into petty theft, when she tries to steal dogfood for Lucy, which leads to a day in jail and Lucy going missing. So Wendy is stranded, lost her only friend and slowly running out of money. And the whole town, falling apart because its mill has closed down, doesn’t care. Wendy And Lucy is the zeitgeist poverty movie we were waiting for, if we wanted a movie to tell us exactly how miserable we were about to be. Which we don’t, and is why we are all waiting with baited breath for Star Trek.
I thought Wendy And Lucy was terrific, a really powerful piece of depression art, with plenty of resonance for previous recessions. But I recognise that it was never going to sell many cinema tickets. So here is my version:
WENDY AND LISA
Prince has taken the old band out again on tour, and Wendy And Lisa have their own tour bus. On the way to a gig in Alaska their tour bus breaks down. Wendy pops into a supermarket to get some M&M’s and accidentally gets busted for possession of a very small amount of drugs (and for still being involved in making the music for the excrable Heroes). When she gets out, Lisa is missing! Wendy searches everywhere, writing the odd plaintive ballad for her partner. Prince missing his crucial members of his live band returns to the small town and puts on a benefit show (note : this is ninety percent of the music, and is a greatest hit set). Lisa comes back. The end.
This version is clearly better, it maintains the structure of the original but where the Michelle Williams version has long stretches of moping, Wendy And Lisa has long stretches of Prince doing I Would Die 4 U. It would make a really good film EVEN BETTER!