Certain Women (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

If you like to have the TV playing to help you fall asleep, this is the movie for you. BIG yawn. No character development, no storyline, no plot. Good acting, but huge waste of time.

If you want an atmospheric, well-observed, patient drama for attentive adults, you have found the movie for you! If that sounds horribly boring and up its own ass to you, listen to your gut and keep browsing.

I'm a long-time fan of Kelly Reichardt, and this performance-driven film did not disappoint. The pacing is very, very slow - too slow for my wife, who departed the film about halfway through. This is a study in loneliness and can seem despairing if you're looking for bright comedy or any action. Every aspect of this film pays very close attention to craft. If you enjoy a superbly well-made film and you've seen other Reichardt films, this one is for you. If you haven't seen other Reichardt films, this would not be the one to start with.

Nice easy pace in a gorgeous setting with authentic characters. I love a film that allows you to take a breath and slowly take in the characters and their stories. Without too much dialogue, we know what these women are thinking and feeling.

Some say “Certain Women” is film about women for whom nothing happens. That’s terribly wrong, I think. It is about moments of desire when everything is at stake, despite the lack of traditional narrative. The three primary characters in the film are, each in their way, fundamentally unseen. They are also centered in their solitudinous lives in a way that is breathtaking, and poignantly so since they don’t seem to notice this quality in themselves. There are these wonderful scenes throughout the film when a racncher, played by Lily Gladstone, going about her work on a horse farm, pushes open a barn door to reveal a frozen and ravishing landscape in a single motion. She hardly seems to notice. It is just there, set before us, native to the place. These powerful women are sort of like that. Achingly beautiful and there, simply there. I watched this film, set in a remote spot in Montana that gets intermittent radio reception late at night in a pale purple bedroom in Lisbon, Portugal, a strange dichotomy that made the experience all that much more affecting, I think. Kelly Reichardt wrote, directed and edited the film.

Boring slow long co u left even finish. No no no just say no

The last episode is very good, the others not so much.

It's just beautiful, and human. I can't say what or why but I really felt this movie.

Writer-director Kelly Reichardt’s 2016 film, which is based on stories by Montana-born writer Maile Meloy, has been badged as a ‘feminist’ film and whilst Reichardt’s protagonists are women who are, to a greater or lesser extent, having to deal with (frequently subtle) forms of patriarchal pressure, I found that there was a good deal more going on in Certain Women. Loneliness and social alienation are themes that run through each of Reichardt’s trio of stories, as is the sense of place and the natural world, with the film’s Montana setting frequently being captured in memorable fashion in the form of spectacular mountain backdrops, with stunning use of muted colour (ominous greys, often white snow-capped), and seemingly endless straight highways, courtesy of cinematographer, Christopher Blauvelt.That Reichardt, essentially an ‘independent’ film-maker well outside the Hollywood mainstream, is able to marshal such an 'all-star’ cast featuring Laura Dern, Kristen Stewart and (previous Reichardt collaborator) Michelle Williams is testament to the esteem in which she is held and, once again, the film-maker delivers a slow-burn, thought-provoking piece of work. All three actresses excel with their subtly naturalistic performances here, but the 'loneliness’ theme also brings out three top turns from lesser known performers. Jared Harris as the beleaguered worker, Will Fuller, seeking justice from an industrial accident, with the help of Dern’s lawyer, Laura Wells; René Auberjonois as the elderly and isolated friend, Albert, and whose sandstone supply Williams’ Gina Lewis is attempting to secure in order to build her dream home; and (particularly) Lily Gladstone, another isolated individual and horse minder, as Jamie, who befriends Stewart’s visiting part-time law lecturer, Beth Travis, all deliver emotionally resonating performances. Jamie’s tale, in particular, is one full of latent, but quite devastating, power as the rancher drives miles in her rickety vehicle in an attempt to reinforce her connection with Travis – a connection which has a degree of ambiguity around sexual attraction or simple friendship.Certain Women’s all-star cast no doubt works as something of a double-edged sword for Reichardt – attracting bigger audiences some of whom, when they don’t get a vampire story or a Lynchian psycho-drama, leave disappointed! No matter, any avenue for opening up this film-maker to a wider audience is to be welcomed. Certain Women is also dedicated to 'Lucy’, who I assume is a reference to the dog in Reichardt’s excellent 2008 film, again featuring Michelle Williams, Wendy And Lucy.

The three stories of 'Certain Women' are only tangentially connected and are mostly told in three separate sections. This is just as well as it's only really the final story that had any impact for me - but what an impact! Lily Gladstone's performance in this story as 'the rancher' (the character never gets a name which is telling in itself) is one of the greatest i've ever seen. She plays a young native American woman living a lonely isolated life looking after horses on a ranch outside a small town, itself apparently miles from anywhere. One evening she drives into town, just to be among other humans, and spots people filing into a college for an evening class. She follows them in unnoticed.The teacher is an exhausted young lawyer called Beth, played beautifully by Kristen Stewart. The rancher falls for Beth big time, although it's not clear whether she immediately realises this is what's happened. After the class she ends up taking Beth to the local diner so that the latter can grab some food before she starts off on her four hour drive home.Beth is an interesting character, so self-absorbed she hardly seems to register the rancher or her attempts to connect with her but also a fighter in a way the rancher isn't. She comes from a poor family and is the first woman in it to make anything of herself. No-one in the family has encouraged her or shown any confidence in her.The story unfolds gently. No roses, no violins... but we do get a horse! The outcome is all the sadder because the director, Kelly Reichardt, avoids melodrama in the ending. Instead life goes on, but we sense that the rancher will be just a little less likely to risk coming out of her shell for the next person who comes along... if they ever do.Lily Gladstone's performance just breaks my heart. She is so real and her feelings ring so true that i can hardly believe she is acting. The nuance in her acting, the way she so completely inhabits the character - the way she walks, talks, gazes - have such integrity. We find out very little about her background, there's just one anecdote about an accident she had as a child, told slightly nervously in the way of someone not used to being listened to; yet she feels like a complete person.The cinematography plays its part in establishing the mood of all this: shots of a bleak but beautiful landscape, partly covered in snow across which horses run, are contrasted with the dim interior of the classroom in which the rancher sits isolated at the back and the brightly lit, functional interior of the diner.The other two stories which concern respectively a lawyer (Laura Dern) taken hostage by a desperate client (Jared Harris) and a woman obsessed with buying some local stone to build a dream house (Michelle Williams) i rarely watch. The rancher's story though i don't think i'll ever stop wanting to watch. I get something new out of it every time i see it.

With such an excellent cast and a description ("Four women striving to forge their own paths amidst the wide-open plains of the American Northwest.") that seemed to promise an interesting, even feisty, film about independent women, this film was so thoroughly disappointing I could not finish it. To start with, it is so slow that you could watch paint dry - there was even a bare wall scene - and the dreariness of the first woman plot (Laura Dern as Laura!) was not improved by the boring beginning to the Michelle Williams secton. I love MW but even she couldn't liven up the dire script. More than half an hour into the film and the nothingness was draining. It is possible the stories improve in the second half of the film but few viewers will be patient enough to wait and see. Possibly the most boring film I have ever purchased on Amazon.

I found “Certain Women” to be a very enjoyable film. Four women –Laura (Laura Dern), Gina (Michelle Williams), The Rancher (Lily Gladstone) and Elizabeth Travis (Kristen Stewart) living and working in Montana make up the four main characters of the film. We are shown aspects of their lives and given an insight into their desires. This is an observational type of film and it is slow paced, with what is possibly the slowest narrative I’ve come across in a long time.I was initially drawn to the film because of the participation of Michelle Williams, and whilst she is great in her role as Gina, it is Lily Gladstone as the ranch-hand that I found most memorable. She delivers few lines of dialogue and yet even without speaking, she conveyed so much, and I thought she was brilliant.The DVD has twenty-five optional subtitle language tracks to choose from, and six optional spoken language tracks to choose from. Sadly though there are not any extra features on the DVD such as a “Making Of” etc.

Really surprised at the number of poor reviews for this. Certain Women was my favourite film of 2017. Beautifully shot and a slow, careful work of art. Words are used sparingly but each word is important. The four main characters each can convey so much with just a look or an expression. This is true cinema and a beautiful film that will make you think differently about the world.