Showing Up

Somewhere between the brilliance of Meek’s Cutoff, Wendy and Lucy, and First Cow, and the bullshit of Certain Women and Night Moves lies Showing Up, which sets new personal records in sparse, dry filmmaking for sparse, dry filmmaker Kelly Reichardt.

Set in the Portland, Ore., art scene, the glacially-paced but beautifully shot work stars Michelle Williams, an odd choice for sourpuss sculptor Lizzie. Sporting an unwavering scowl and swatting away advances of kindness as suspicious activity, she’s a chore to endure as she prepares for her latest show, though time spent with her fractured family and the passive-aggressive rivalry with her landlord and colleague Jo (Hong Chau, The Whale) sheds some light on her caustic attitude.

Amidst the stress of the exhibit’s looming deadline and a lack of hot water at home that frustratingly isn’t a top priority for Jo, Lizzie finds purpose in her art and via caring for a pigeon that her cat Ricky injured, and it’s in these scattered interactions that Showing Up conveys a soulfulness missing from the rest of the film.

Rather than build on these emotionally-rich, quiet moments, Reichardt and co-writer Jonathan Raymond seem more interested in showing off the world they’ve created. Their crew filled empty buildings to believably create the art school where Lizzie performs menial tasks for her administrator mother Jean (Maryann Plunkett, Little Women), but the filmmakers fail to populate this environment with characters who rise above caricature status, leaving instructors played by the likes of André Benjamin (whose flute solos on the soundtrack are one of the film’s brightest spots) and James Le Gros with half-formed dialogue and little direction.

Showing Up is also a film about art where audiences actually see the art instead of merely hearing about it — a gamble that mostly pays off, but ultimately serves as just another detail that, while offering a fairly compelling glimpse into the creators’ souls, is a poor substitute for character development.

It all builds — crawls? — to a climax of near-suffocating tension, albeit derived from blatantly obvious, inevitable forces, and resolved by a solution too random to provide anything close to the catharsis it suggests. After the highs of First Cow, it’s a significant regression for Reichardt, but certainly far from her worst work.

Grade: C. Rated R. Now playing at the Fine Arts Theatre

(Photo: A24)