CERTAIN WOMEN

Three women in small-town Montana, three stories that only brush against one another. The lawyer Laura Wells (Laura Dern) looks after an injured client who no longer has any legal claim and yet cannot let go – until he resorts to a desperate act. Gina Lewis (Michelle Williams) is building a house with her husband and wants to talk an elderly neighbour out of his sandstone for it; the negotiation exposes the cracks in her marriage. And the young lawyer Beth Travis (Kristen Stewart) teaches an evening class in a town four hours’ drive from where she lives, where week after week a lonely horse-ranch hand (Lily Gladstone) sits down beside her. “Certain Women” (2016) by the American director Kelly Reichardt is based on stories by Maile Meloy.

Kelly Reichardt tells this without great revelations: small shifts between desire and expectation, shot in the openness around Livingston, Montana, and in images that separate her characters from one another through windows and doorframes. It premiered at the Sundance Festival in 2016; the London Film Festival named it best film, and Lily Gladstone received the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award for best supporting actress. “Certain Women” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2016.

Shown at the 2016 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2016 · Film Archive