Showing Up (2023)

4 Stars (out of 4)

Sculpting in Time

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

If Kelly Reichardt's previous film First Cow was novelistic, then her newest feature, Showing Up, is more like a beautiful short story. It more or less follows two Portland artists who live next to each other. Lizzy (Michelle Williams) is an uptight sculptor whose hot water isn't working, and Jo (Hong Chau) is a more capricious installation artist and the actual landlord who doesn't seem in a hurry to fix Lizzy's water problem. They're both preparing for shows, while small dramas unfold around them. Lizzy's cat injures a bird, and then Jo rescues it, and leaves it with Lizzy to babysit for most of the time. (Reichardt often provides pleasing bird sounds in the audio mix.) Moreover, Lizzy's brother Sean (John Magaro, from First Cow) seems to be having mental health issues. She goes to check on him and finds him digging holes in his backyard. "These are mouths," he says, claiming that it's an art project.

Everything stresses out Lizzy. She frets about her father (Judd Hirsch) having two freeloaders (Matt Malloy and Amanda Plummer) crashing at his place. She sulks after a too-hot kiln singes one of her sculptures. (The kiln operator, played by André Benjamin, tries to tell her that it's an interesting touch, but she won't listen.) She even frets about the cheese at her eventual show, at first claiming that there's too much cheese, and then fretting some more when her family begins to eat it all. Williams holds all this stress, physically, in her superb performance. She carries her frame as if it were kept together by tightly-stretched rubber bands that could snap at any moment. Hong Chau is equally great, and opposite, sensual and loose, with hair flowing all the way down past her waist. In one scene, we watch her has she hauls home an old tire, deftly ties a rope around it, and creates a tire swing.

Reichardt's sound design is breathtaking, and provides much of the movie's relaxed, lived-in atmosphere. In addition to birds, we often hear the breeze, and snippets of Benjamin playing the flute (which turned out to be a happy accident). The sound of Lizzy's hands sliding over the surfaces of her ceramic sculptures is like a song. There are also many "pillow shots" of local artists making their creations, all of which help establish the same mood. I can't stop thinking about the wonderful ending, which magically brings all the elements and characters together for a moment of tension, and a moment of release. The final shots of Lizzy and Jo wandering around looking skyward make up one of those perfect sequences, pondering life and appreciating the moment.