Downer Movie

I rented a movie called Wendy and Lucy. I rented it because it was filmed in Portland and because it is made from a short story written by a Portland author. I wish I had passed on renting this movie. It is a downer, start to finish.

The story revolves around a teen girl, Wendy, and her dog, Lucy. The girl is travelling alone in a car, homeless, headed to Alaska. She pulls into a parking lot to sleep the night and a security guard wakes her, to tell her she can't sleep there and she must at least move her car to the city street and park along the curb.

Her car won't start. He suggests she take it to a mechanic next door. However, the shop is rarely open. When she does find it open, he agrees to look at the car. In the meantime, she is caught shoplifting and loses Lucy.

She begins a search for Lucy. The security guard allows her to use his cell phone to call the pound and for fliers. She spends the first night without her car in an abandoned homeless camp by the tracks. She is startled awake by the rantings of an insane homeless man. She barely survives this terrifying encounter. He steals many of her things.

She forms a bond with the elderly security guard but is devastated to learn he has a partner, a much younger rather possessive woman. He slips her some money but that is all he can do.

She finally receives word from the pound that Lucy was turned in the day she was reported lost, they just had lost track of her, because she immediately went into foster care.

Wendy checks on her car and the mechanic tells her the engine is blown and it is junk. He presses her for permission to junk it. Wendy is next seen headed to the foster home address she has been given by the pound. She finds Lucy in a spacious well kept backyard. She throws Lucy a stick to fetch a few times, then realizes how happy Lucy is there. She had struggled to even feed her dog. She tearfully says goodbye to Lucy.

The last scene in the movie is of this kid, alone, hopping a freight train.

This movie is not entertainment, it is punishment. Don't do it to yourself.

I know the movie mirrors the reality many kids live, kids who ran away from home in the first place to escape horrors at home. If you want to punish yourself for the sins of society, watch the movie. It's as good as sanding your knees before kneeling to pray in a pan of rubbing alcohol.