Abruptly scrapped from the release schedule last year, “Dear Wendy” is just now sneaking into the area for a limited run. It’s understandable that a distributor might have cold feet about this exceedingly odd film, but it merits a look-see for viewers who like to walk on the wild side.
Although it’s an English-language film, “Dear Wendy” was hatched from the Danish brains of screenwriter Lars von Trier and director Thomas Vinterberg. It’s in line with the stark, not-quite-real world of von Trier’s “Dogville,” taking place in a Neverland of an American small town.
The teenage main characters are a wild bunch in their own minds. Led by Jamie Bell (once the lead of “Billy Elliot,” currently pulling shipboard duty in “King Kong”), this group of outcast teens has formed their own underground society called “The Dandies.”
They meet in some kind of abandoned factory or mining works, and favor the wearing of foppish long coats and scarves; when they’re in full regalia they fall somewhere between the Old West and Oscar Wilde.
But their main rallying point is guns. Each member of the Dandies packs a pistol, and each lavishes love and care upon said gun. If “Dear Wendy” were a more coherent movie, this intense bond with firearms might be a statement about American gun worship and violence.
| Different: Misfit teens in a Neverland American small town form a secret, gun-worshipping society. It’s messy and pretentious, but at least it bristles with something.
Rated: Not rated; probably R for violence, language Now showing: Grand Illusion, 1403 NE 50th, Seattle; 206-523-3935 |
However, nothing in the movie is that clear-cut. Von Trier is the biggest mischief-maker in cinema these days, always on the prowl for some applecart to push over. His critics tend to take him too seriously when they shouldn’t (he invented the whole “Dogma” school of offhand filmmaking) and not seriously enough when they should (“Dancer in the Dark”).
Thomas Vinterberg scored a hit with his somewhat overrated film “The Celebration,” but he’s not the director von Trier is. “Dear Wendy” is messy and pretentious, despite the best efforts of an interesting cast (including Bill Pullman) and a soundtrack of old songs by the Zombies. It has some exciting, crazy sequences within the confusion.
And for a supposedly anti-gun movie, “Dear Wendy” seems seduced by the allure of guns, and how cool the kids are when they strut their fantasies. So this movie’s contradicting itself, but at least it’s bristling with something, which is more than you can say for half the movies that were released last year.
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