re:mote voices

Title: Dear Wendy
Cast: Jamie Bell, Bill Pullman, Michael Angarano, Danso Gordon, Novella Nelson, Chris Owen, Alison Pill, Mark Webber
Director:Thomas Vinterberg

Dear Wendy is a love letter to a gun, written as events come to a head, allowing for the film to flash backwards from that starting point to lead to crisis. And you know pretty quickly that this is the kind of film where things are going to go wrong sooner or later, you just know. Though, the thing with Dear Wendy is you don't know what is going to happen, and the key events that shape the ways things develop are pretty unpredictable.

Dick is an 18-year-old in a mining town, who has refused to follow his father into the mines. Instead he has a job in the local store, and is one of the town's losers. That is, until he finds Wendy. He thinks Wendy is a toy gun, until Steve who he works in the store with points out that in fact it is real. This brings the two losers together, pacifists with guns - they become obsessed with the details, the kinds of bullets, entry wounds, and exit wounds. Slowly they realise that by having guns, but not using guns, they are no longer losers - they have found a strength within themselves.

Having made this realisation, the pair decide to recruit the other losers in town, to offer them the same feeling of strength they have. Before long there are 5 of them, they call themselves the Dandies, and they have taken up residence in the old mine building, which they have renamed the Temple. There they hold rituals, learn about guns, and practice shooting, but never take their "partners" outside where they might "wake up". The result is exuberant, the group laugh and play, listen to music - creating their own little world. But as i say, we all know it can't last, and it doesn't.

Dear Wendy is a curious collaboration between two of the biggest names from the Dogme school of film making; though this is not a contribution to that series. The film is written by Lars von Trier, who did the second Dogme film Idiots, and more recently the challenging Dogville. While the direction is by Thomas Vinterberg, who directed the first Dogme film Festen, and more recently the quirky and memorably Its All About Love. In a lot of ways, despite Vinterberg insisting that he was in control, Dear Wendy bears clear marks of von Trier's influence. The action all takes place, more or less, on one square of town - the impression being that is the entire set, echoing Dogville's chalk outlines brought to life. In turn some of the characters tend towards von Trier's perception of American archetypes. Though, as Vinterberg has said, if von Trier had directed it Dear Wendy would have been a very different film. Not least because von Trier's script is reported to have had younger characters.

Cast wise we see Jamie Bell graduate from the noxious Billy Elliot to provide a pretty decent performance. The most obvious name actor is Bill Pullman, who puts in an appearance as the town's sherrif. With the rest of the cast seeing raised profiles for Chris Owen (Ladykillers), Danso Gordon (American History X), Mark Webber (Storytelling), Michael Angarano (Seabiscuit) and Alison Pill (Pieces Of April). Pill in particularly becoming something of a poster girl for the film, appearing on most of the imagery i've seen for the film's promotion.

I liked Dear Wendy, like the creator's other films it isn't straight forward or safe, but it has a definite charm and style, while being resolutely unpredictable.