Showing Up (2022)

I loved this dreamy story of an angry sculptor preparing to show her work while juggling an administrative job, working for her mother, at the Oregon College of Art and Craft in Portland. Michelle Williams is brilliant, as always, with body language to convey Lizzy's frustrations. Hong Chau plays a more successful artist who is Lizzy's selfish landlord, Maryann Plunkett and Judd Hirsch are Lizzy's parents, and John Magaro appears as her brother in the third act. There are plenty of other fine actors on screen, too numerous to mention.

Directed by Kelly Reichardt from a script by her and Jon Raymond, it does not move fast. In fact, Vanity Fair calls Reichardt "the American slow-cinema maestro" and Jack is not a fan of slow cinema so he was less enthused than I. But I was transfixed by the long sequences of artists making art, shot at the actual school. Portland sculptor Cynthia Lahti was about to retire when Reichardt hired her to create Lizzy's pieces.

Ethan Rose is credited for the  soundtrack but I can't find it streaming. However, someone has created an Apple Music playlist of songs from the movie, many of which I've had to skip because the lyrics interfere with my composing sentences.

Williams and Hirsch were last blogged for The Fabelmans, Chau for The Menu (I didn't mention her in the cast of dozens in Asteroid City), Plunkett for The Family Fang, and Magaro, Reichardt, and Raymond for First Cow. This is Rose's fifth feature.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics made appearances with an 88% average, while its audiences preferred not to, at 45. We rented it on Apple TV/iTunes on July 29, and kept watching for more sequences of artists making art over the end credits.