With First Cow, Kelly Reichardt made her most acclaimed film to date, due in no small part to a funnier, more accessible script than much of the director’s previous work. The critics loved it and it wound up on a slew of top 10 lists in 2020. Now, her follow-up takes noticeable notes from that success, even as it mostly falls back into the slow, methodical pacing that’s defined Reichardt as an auteur. Showing Up is very much a Reichardt film in that it walks the thin line between quietly affecting drama and being a total snoozefest. Unlike Certain Women, which employed its tonally distinct vignettes to aid the director’s signature deliberate pacing, this film more often than not flirts with plain and simple boredom—except when some of that light First Cow humor remembers to shine through.
The first half of the film is understated to the degree of seemingly not being stated at all. We follow Lizzy (Michelle Williams), a sculptor living in Portland with her cat who ends up rescuing a pigeon between meticulous sessions of clay molding and painting. Her landlord and fellow local artist, Jo (Hong Chau), is the bane of her existence, as she continually finds herself distracted from fixing Lizzy’s hot water and, when she briefly takes over taking care of the pigeon, flippantly pawns it back off to Lizzy. Their dynamic keeps the film’s pulse alive, mostly thanks to Chau’s sheer comedic precision. She steals most scenes she’s in, practically electrifying rooms relying on limited candlelight.
But Williams eventually proves strong as ever. The second half of the film offers a recontextualization of Lizzy’s life as it becomes clear she’s actually fairly talented at her craft and deserves to be taken seriously as an artist, all while limiting herself in how she lives and expresses herself. The difference, however, between Showing Up and similar character studies is that the first half really doesn’t offer much enough material for introspection until the safety pin holding together Lizzy’s life comes undone in a way that finally makes her easier to care about and entertaining to watch. Suddenly, character drama comes to the forefront—now understated in a manner that feels fulfilling—and a tangible, rewarding arc emerges.
The film eventually reveals itself as a meditation on the importance of interpersonal connection and how the arts, even when underappreciated, are a gateway to that. There’s a beautiful moment of freedom in the third act that, after the film’s more sluggish stretches, effectively drives the point home. It’s a reminder that, though we may not all care the same way, that care and love are all we have in this world. Had Reichardt played her hand more evenly throughout, albeit as subtly as she has in the past, Showing Up would stand tall against her other work. Still, the film works as a showcase for Williams and Chau cast as two opposing forces in a muted, microscopic conflict. That’s the good film that’s trying and eventually thankfully succeeds in breaking through here.
