There has been a lot of discussion of late, sparked by the critical reception of certain blockbusters, about the value of film criticism. Some moviegoers think of it as a red light/green light predictor of enjoyment, but there are many other ways to conceive of its purpose, something each critic grapples with when starting a review. In this writer’s estimation, movies like Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up are why criticism exists — not because everyone will enjoy it, nor because it is opaque in a way that begs interpretation, but simply because it is a richly layered work of art. It will take time, thought, and several perspectives voiced over thousands of words to tease out everything it has to offer. A good review, positive or negative, could feel illuminating to read.
Reichardt’s latest inspires this kind of reflection in part because it makes art its subject. Showing Up is centered on Lizzy (Michelle Williams), a ceramicist just one week away from an exhibition of her work: a series of playful, textured figures in motion (in reality those of Portland, Oregon’s Cynthia Lahti). Her pieces aren’t quite finished yet, and while this movie ostensibly documents her efforts to complete them in time, it could also be described as the story of an artist trying to make this week about everything in her life but her art. Williams performs Lizzy as someone trying to keep a lid on her stress and making it painfully obvious she is doing so, and she finds no shortage of alternatives to make the object of her irritation.
She is jealous of Jo (Hong Chau), her friend and fellow artist who, despite having two exhibitions this week, isn’t a tense mess. She is also angry at Jo, who she happens to rent from, for dragging her feet on fixing her water heater, and Lizzy declares she needs a shower to anyone who will listen. She finds reasons to be either concerned for or at odds with each member of her family: Jean (Maryann Plunkett), her mother and boss at the Oregon College of Art and Craft, is too critical; Bill (Judd Hirsch), her father, is being taken advantage of by freeloading lodgers; Sean (John Magaro), her brother, is taking his eccentricity to worrying degrees. She makes a show of being overwhelmed by her cat’s basic needs, only to end up obsessing over whether a wounded pigeon Jo insisted on saving is warm enough in its little box.
If this setup sounds funny, that’s because Showing Up often plays like a low-key comedy. There is a lot of humor in just watching the scowling woman move through space and stir up drama, and though the film is never heightened, it sometimes does subtly go for the laugh — when Lizzy goes to her father’s house, Reichardt makes sure to keep one too-comfortable guest’s bare feet in frame across an edit. But the movie by no means presents Lizzy’s struggles as in any way farcical; it is sincerely interested in exploring her life, her relationships, and her creative process, along with many other things that cross her path. What’s most impressive is that it somehow succeeds at being “about” all those interests.
For example, Showing Up can be read as a meditation on the power of art to transform physical spaces. A great deal of attention is paid to the film’s various rooms, which often take on a psychic component, reflecting the person they belong to. Lizzy’s workshop is a cluttered, sparingly lit garage that feels as textured and contained as her artworks. Jo’s, meanwhile, is a high-ceilinged loft with plenty of natural light, calming and open. Sean’s house, strikingly, is dark and spare. These personalized spaces exist in contrast to the College, which is communal and filled with artists constantly at work, and the difference in how those rooms feel as a viewer is palpable.
In this reading, the third act brings the importance of exhibition rooms into focus: blank canvases, brought to life only by the art on display. Arranging the work of one artist in a neutral space distills the affective tenor of their personal one and makes it shareable. In one scene, Lizzy gets some time alone in Jo’s exhibition, and Williams makes legible the way it changes her relationship to the world for that moment. She has to look up at Jo’s large, colorful pieces, and she takes on some of her friend’s ease and awe. Lizzy’s work, by contrast, requires looking down to get close and find wonder in the details, which Chau and Hirsch both get the chance to embody.
Among the many things that could result from watching it, Showing Up makes easy to understand why making and displaying art can be so agonizing. Reichardt takes the expression “to put oneself out there” and literalizes it, in the process presenting the creation of art on any scale as an admirable act of courage. Criticism, though perhaps a less risky enterprise, can and should aspire to a similar sharing of perspective. With any luck, just as the gaze of this movie’s camera deepens one’s appreciation for the artistic process, someone can find their point of view on this film changed by seeing it through a different set of eyes.
Showing Up released in limited theaters April 7. The film is 108 minutes long and is rated R for brief graphic nudity.
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