Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Surprise!, 20 May 2006
This movie is one which is best enjoyed without reading about its plot first. Even the title has a twist which if its revealed spoils the entire experience somewhat. Not a movie to buy unless you're a completist of the director's work but definitely one to rent blind and watch with a friend. From a banal ordinairy beginning to a ... ending of sorts. A work of art and a joy to watch.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
join the dandies, 5 May 2007
Some films are more than the sum of their parts, some films are considerably less than the sum of their parts. Dear Wendy however, is a film that is precisely the sum of its parts, nothing more and nothing less.
The film focuses on a simple and very deceptive love affair between a social misfit Dicky (played by Billy Elliot's Jamie Bell), and Wendy of the title. However, Wendy is not the girl of his dreams, she is in fact the gun of his dreams. Dicky lives in a small American town called Electric Park, and is determined not to follow in his fathers footsteps and end up working down the local mine. After securing a job at a local store, Dicky comes across what he thinks is a toy gun in a local store, run by the equally awkward Susan (Alison Pill), and buys the gun as a present for someone he doesn't really like, but winds up giving them something else instead, and keeps the gun. It is only when fellow convenience store worker Stevie (Mark Webber) catches sight of the gun that he identifies and reveals to Dicky that it is a working gun, and he to possesses a gun. The two of them strike up an unlikely friendship, and soon establish a club for their fellow misfits Susan, and two brothers Freddie (Michael Angarano) and Huey (Chris Owen). Calling themselves the Dandies, all of them obtain guns of one sort or another, and begin practising with them, establishing rules, and becoming a tight knit family. It is only when local petty criminal Sebastian (Danso Gordon) joins the group that things begin to come apart.
From this basic premise director Thomas Vinterburg and writer Lars Von Trier have established as interesting and absorbing a film as you are ever likely to see. Taking the premise of what would a group of misfits do if they ever got their hands on guns (they would name then, they would obsessively practise with them, they would use them as confidence boosters and social crutches), writer and director present us with a stripped down vision of alienation, as we are quickly drawn into the obsessive world of Dicky and his band of make believe outlaws. Utilising few locations (most of it takes place in an abandoned mine or around the town square if you can call it that), and a sparse dialogue that never feels padded or unnecessary (although the over reliance on Dickys voiceover can occasionally become intrusive), the film builds from the gangs initial friendship and obsession built around their desire to be more than they are, to a climax that is both obvious and surprising at the same time.
That it takes a European writer to make such an obvious critique of American society may not sit well with some, but this is a good point well made. That the film manages to make its point without ever implicitly coming down as pro gun or anti gun is a credit to the writer and director, leaving it up to the viewer to decide which side of the fence they want to be on.
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8 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pacifist geeks get guns and feel better for it, 1 Nov 2005
Pacifist geeks get guns, feel better for it, but are ultimately corrupted by their weapons’ ‘true nature’. Or should that be their own true nature. Either way Dear Wendy makes for an intelligent exploration of social exclusion and the attractiveness of cults, while a superb ’60s soundtrack proves its creators’ Dogme days are long gone.
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