The fourth collaboration of Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams has a genuine sagacious pathos about it.
Showing Up nestles us to the hassles and loneliness of an artist before a career-making show involving six ceramic female statues set in the Portland, Oregon area.
Williams’ aspiring Lizzy has an inaudible angst about her for good reason given her circumstance buoyed with much detail and comedic potential by the veteran idle director. The screenplay, accomplished with Jonathan Raymond, has a lightweight, if symbolic quality about it that becomes more appealing in retrospective.
As for her separated parents her mother (Maryann Plunkett) is an administrator and boss at the Arts and Crafts college where she works as a secretary. Her sculptor father (Judd Hirsch) is less interested in where her artistic desires are heading. A brother (John Magaro of First Cow) also has artistic tendencies and has bipolar disorder.
The lead-up to important event also puts Lizzy in the crosshairs with her artistically say landlord (Hong Chau) who is pretty irksome given the she’s been slow in handling Lizzy’s hot water heater repairs. Also there’s an assistant and kin operator (André 3000 of Four Brothers) who leaves one of Lizzy’s pieces in too long.
Showing Up makes up more than expected out of the process even if some viewers might have that exasperating feeling from an impassive vibe. But, Reichardt and Williams again let the measured ways of the humdrum blossom with droll uplift.