Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, 2008)

Somehow just what I expected and then not quite what I expected. I feared it would be as harrowing as a Lars von Trier movie and I thought it might be more overtly political. It's just a slight, 80-minute story. I think the reviews I read blew it up a little bit.
It reminds me of a down-and-out place I've been, doing what you can while more well-situated people sneer at you.
You're left with a lot of questions at the end of the movie. And you're left with a few days of this girl's life floating in ether.
I wonder what you're meant to make of it.

spoiler alert
She's left Indiana. Ostensibly has no friends to call but only a sister and brother or someone who aren't really too concerned with her and seem not want to be bothered with her. She's going to Alaska because she wants to earn money. Does she want to start a new life there? Does she need the money for some particular goal? Why does her sister think she's calling for money? Is she a deadbeat? A recovered drug addict? There's something about the end that seemed a little off. I guess even if she had left a note or something it would have made more sense somehow. How does a girl end up so alone in the world? She didn't seem fresh from a loony bin and seemed to have adequate, if not shining, social skills. She didn't seem to have spent much money on her trip. One wonders why she was shoplifting in the first place. And why she didn't take a bus to Alaska instead of hopping a train.