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This is minimalist film-making at it's finest. A message film in the most subtle of ways. On the surface it's a simple, beautifully told story of a young woman falling apart due to economic crisis as she is looking for her lost dog. But writer/director Kelly Reichardt imbues her film with this underlying look at the self-centeredness at America. She's not saying that every single person is worthless (there's a wonderful subplot with an old man who helps Wendy), but that the average American is just too focused on their own selves to not even notice this innocent, decent young woman who is falling apart. People walk by and see her sleeping in her car but instead of thinking of what they can do to help, they just laugh and keep walking. Even a seemingly decent person like the mechanic Wendy takes her car to when it brakes down, doesn't notice how far down she is. Or maybe he just doesn't really care.

Maybe it would be different if Wendy was openly looking for help, but she isn't. On the inside she is completely falling apart, but she puts on this front of indifference as if everything is alright with her. She tries to reach out to her sister and her husband, but they immediately act as if calling them is begging for a handout so she falls back on the lie that everything is fine in her life. But if you look at her for more than five minutes, you can tell that things are far from decent. Stories like this happen every day and no one bothers to realize it. Throughout the film you can hear, or see a few times, a train rolling through the scene and passing on. Reichardt uses this to symbolize the fact that America just rolls on by people like Wendy who are in such a state of decay, but they are moving too fast to stop and notice that she exists, let alone what a poor state she's in. It's a remarkably intelligent film under the veil of a beautiful story of a woman losing her dog.

Reichardt's remarkably subtle, intuitive direction leads this film but it would have been nothing without Michelle Williams' revelatory performance. She brings all of these emotions of anger, depression and even joy at the end right underneath the surface, but then holds them just below. It takes a highly skilled actor to make you instantly realize what's going on inside of them, without allowing themself to pour all of that out. So in the moment where she does breakdown externally, it makes for a much more severe impact than if she had been crying the entire film.

I personally found Wendy to be a very relatable character. She's an isolated, lonely person but she's that way because she chose to be. It's not that she thinks all people are worthless, but the people she meets are just so self-centered and uninteresting that she doesn't bother taking the time to try and become friends with them. And likewise, they don't take the time to notice anything about her. Instead she has friendship in her one true companion, her dog Lucy. So at the beginning of the film when she loses Lucy, I wept in sadness. And at the end, when they are finally reunited, I wept with joy.

Kings & Queen is the first film I've seen from writer/director Arnaud Desplechin, but I can already tell that he is a master director and, perhaps even moreso, a master storyteller. This is a film filled with an ensemble of highly complex, emotional, tragic, comedic, realistic, compelling and human characters. As an outsider into the universe that Desplechin creates these people seem normal in most ways, but what makes them so real is that in each character's head they are the focal point of their universe. Which is an obvious thing to say since that's true about every human being, but it's rarely demonstrated in films. Most films feel like they are their own universe and the characters are just people in that universe, moving along as characters and not necessarily their own personal worlds. That isn't the case here, though, as all of these people maneuver as their own individual universes inside of the overall scope that Desplechin as masterfully created. They aren't just one-note characters; they are their own kings and queens of their world, if you will.

This film focuses on two very different characters going through two very different stories. Nora (Emmanuelle Devos) is a woman who is faced with many grueling dilemmas. She is living with a history of loss and pain, and only gets more of this as she learns that her father has bowel cancer and only a few more days to live. Along with this she has to try and manage her son from her first marriage and her upcoming third marriage to a new man who her son doesn't like. There is so much on her plate, yet she always tries to keep her emotions in check and tries to keep a joy in her life. This bleak, emotional melodrama is split with the character of Ismaël (Mathieu Amalric) who is her polar opposite. Ismaël, Nora's second husband, is someone with no harshness in his life. He has a sort of magic around him at all times, no matter what state his life is in. He too is facing hard times. The IRS is attacking him and we are introduced to the character as two men from a psychiatric hospital show up at his doorstep and drag him away to their hospital. This story is filled with immense life and highly absurd comedy, which is a perfect mix for the painful melodrama of Nora's journey.

One of the many geniuses of Kings & Queen is how Desplechin weaves these two different stories together so seamlessly. Not only do the characters feel remarkably real, but they feel as if they belong to the same universe. It's so rare these days to find an ensemble film where everything fits into the same world, instead of these big chunks of different characters that feel as if they are just mashed together from completely separate films but the writer/director tries to put them all together. Films like that always feel bloated and awkward as they transition from one entirely different universe to another. Kings & Queen features two highly unique types of journeys, but the transitions are never awkward and the film is never bloated. Whenever we are watching Nora, in the back of our minds we are still thinking about where Ismaël is on his journey through the film. And likewise, whenever we are watching Ismaël, we are thinking about Nora as well. This is a huge compliment to Desplechin as it is the perfect example for how he puts these people in the same universe, instead of entirely different films.

Devos and Amalric lead a highly impressive ensemble cast through this epic journey of tragedy and comedy. Everyone helps Desplechin in making their characters so rich and alive. You can tell that each actor has put a long history inside of their roles that we only get to see a portion of throughout the course of the film. Mathieu Amalric is an absolute revelation a, and easily the most remarkable of the cast. I wouldn't hesitate to go so far as to say that it's one of the best performances I've ever seen. He is filled with charisma and life, but also with a hint of insanity just below the surface. His Ismaël is an extremely bipolar narcissist who greatly impacts everyone that comes across. I can safely say that I've never seen a performance like it and that he dazzled me for every moment he was on screen. Emmanuelle Devos is almost as impressive, bringing so much emotion to a point just below the surface where you can tell how much everything is affecting the character but she holds it down for most of the film, so that the scenes where she lets that emotion pour out are much more compelling and say a lot more about her character at that time in the story.

A highly intelligent, interesting film that does a great job of showing the impact that the ripples of Nazi Germany still have on the modern world. It's half a study of that, half a character study of Mathieu Amalric's character, a psychologist for a large, anonymous company. This character is completely breaking down throughout the film as a result of living in such a shady, paranoia filled society. I have to admit that there is some stuff that went over my head. There's a subplot involving an almost underground society of these business types who take these boats to a place where they pop drugs and rave. I'm sure that the whole thing has a symbolic meaning but for me it just provided a stunning catharsis and more depth into Amarlic's character. His performance in the film is absolutely stunning. It's a very quiet, subtle portrayal that is one of the most...calculated performances I've seen in quite a while. You can tell that he put so much thought into every move that the character makes. Every turn of the body, slight movement of the eyes, it's all important for the performance. But the genius of him as an actor is that you realize he is putting importance into all of those moments, but he is so great at putting himself into the character that you just think it's important for the character and don't think about the man acting as the character until after the film is over. A very intelligent, complex performance in an intelligent, complex film.