Something always seems to be awry in a portrait of the industrial town in depictions of rural America. If the sheriff's not a crook or the doctor's not a crank, then at least the impoverished landscape provides a breeding ground for discrimination or distrust within the community.
This idea is the fascination of many artists, and it does not escape the work of director Lars von Trier, who, with previous films like "Dancer in the Dark" (2000) and "Dogville" (2003), proves himself a writer of doom once again with "Dear Wendy." Teaming up with fellow director and Dogme 95 (a mid-90's naturalist Danish filmmaking movement) member Thomas Vinterberg, von Trier tells the tale of misfits down a mineshaft that barrels through themes of loneliness and delusion, but ultimately misses its mark, whatever that may be.
It is tempting to call "Dear Wendy" an experiment gone sour, for that description mirrors its plot. Dick, (Jamie Bell) a young man living in a generic mining town, is a self-described loner, a loser instead of a "real man" working down in the mines. When he discovers that a toy gun he bought as a gift and forgot about is an actual gun, however, he becomes inexplicably attracted to it, despite his pacifist principles.
Eventually Dick and his gun-expert friend Stevie (Mark Webber) decide that the empowerment they've found through carrying but not brandishing their guns ought to be shared with the town's other losers. The social experiment takes shape as a clandestine club called the Dandies is formed and cultivated to be a space for said loners to bond and find purpose through the craft of weaponry. Of course, their best intentions of never shooting their guns at people backfire when an outsider (Danso Gordon) enters the scene and turns their delicate fantasy into gruesome reality.
"Dear Wendy" walks that line of fantasy and reality in more ways than one, with its contrived, cookie-cutter characters bathed in natural light and shot often with hand-held cameras (a hallmark of Dogme 95 style).
This intentionally sparse style often distracts more than it adds. The dingy set design and the Dandies' ornamental costumes are theatrical, but perhaps believable within this misguided fable. The work of cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle is engaging, but some of the beauty is lost in the film's gray "realist" palate.
One purely positive thing the film offers is the dominance of adventurous '60s band The Zombies on its soundtrack. The group's songs are tied directly into the plot, including one instance of diegetic use when Dick puts on an old album in good spirits. However, The Zombies' tunes are so effective at setting the mood throughout the film that they distract audience members into thinking that they like the same music as the misfit Dandies.
This brings up a number of points of confusion: Is the audience meant to be empathetic to or appalled by the Dandies? Do we sympathize with the loners or hate them for even trying to carve a niche in an unforgiving world?
As a von Trier story, we know that things are not going to end well from the outset of the film. Yet even awareness of this impending doom does not guide the viewer to the "intended" understanding of the film.
While there's likely no correct interpretation, it is frustrating to vacillate between viewing the story as one that the doing-nothing-going-nowhere losers of the audience can relate to and one that is too far removed into Americana portraiture for anyone to feel.
Both writer and director deny any intention of making a film that critiques American gun culture, or rural American culture at that. Fine.
But there's nothing that keeps the film from screaming, "I'm a parody of a Western!" in the final act. The unbridled violence is expected from the beginning, but in the end is not warranted. The story just doesn't earn the right to have a "shoot 'em up 'til they're down" conclusion, even if we know it's coming.
"Dear Wendy" does not scream anything distinctively; if there's a moral it is lost in the gun smoke, and if there's a directive of how to feel then it's not commanding enough to be noticed.
The film is not a total dud, and especially not for von Trier fans who will find it consistent with his body of work. Perhaps it redeems itself in part by making you question what you are supposed to think of it, not unlike staring at an untitled Pollack canvas; you know there is structure and purpose beyond those scattered, gray globs of paint... probably.
