Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticLizzy Carr (Michelle Williams), the central character of Kelly Reichardt’s “Showing Up,” is a sculptor who is finishing up a series of ceramic figures she’ll be presenting in a gallery show.
We see her working, throughout the movie, on the small clay statues — all women, each one about a foot tall, some mounted on rods, all with an intentionally rough, patchy surface that may look awkward and unpolished if you’re close up to it, but when you stand back a bit you see the aesthetic elegance of her style. (Giacometti would understand.) She’s making sculptures of female characters who look a bit ghostly in their lack of perfect line, but that’s part of their design (they all appear a little tormented), and that quality is balanced by the delicate surprise colors they’re painted with, which express their inner life.
There’s no question: Lizzy has talent. And devotion. With a kind of meticulous calm, she pours herself into creating and honing these objects.
What she doesn’t have is a career as an artist. She’s getting her own show because she’s finishing up her studies at the Oregon College of Art and Craft in Portland, the city she’s from.
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