SHOWING UP
A sculptor preparing to open a new show must balance her creative life with the daily dramas of family and friends, in Kelly Reichardt’s vibrant and captivatingly funny portrait of art and craft.
SYNOPSIS
From the rising tensions of a make-or-break week of a Portland artist getting ready for a big show, filmmaker Kelly Reichardt carves a profound, gorgeously layered portrait of a woman that is as much about what makes up a life as it is about making art. Michelle Williams shimmers with complexity as Lizzy, who is trying to hold things together when they keep trying to fall apart. Her hot water heater is busted, her brother might be going off the rails, her divorced parents are exasperating in their own separate ways, she’s surrounded by free spirits at the arts college where she works… and all this lies just below the raw surface of the work that feeds her soul.
It is through Lizzy’s deeply relatable, often comical, everyday tribulations on her way to a longed-desired achievement that Showing Up becomes a quiet tour de force. Out of pressurized moments of absurdity and inspiration, out of crazy-making yet sustaining relationships, there emerges the beautiful, wondrously jagged shape of a person’s life.
The film is Reichardt’s most sweetly comedic, yet it swerves irony. Instead, the fun comes from the awkwardness of Lizzy being Lizzy, from the hippy throwbacks of the Portland art scene, and the contradictory dynamics of Lizzy’s many push-and-pull relationships. Over the course of one frantic week, Reichardt takes us into the fabric of how Lizzy makes it through harried days and night-time triumphs in her garage studio, where she goes through the process of making her art.
Director
Kelly Reichardt
WITH
Michelle Williams, Hong Chau, Maryann Plunkett, John Magaro, André Benjamin, James Legro
Run Time
1 hour, 47 minutes
Released
April 7, 2023
Distributed by
A24
HEARING AND VISUAL ASSISTANCE
Closed Captioning
Descriptive Audio
Country
United States
SUBTITLES
None
RATED R
For Brief Graphic Nudity
SHOWINGS
AUG 11 | FRI
4:50, 7:15, 9:25 p.m.
AUG 12 | SAT
12:20, 2:35, 4:50, 7:15, 9:25 p.m.
AUG 13 | SUN
12:20, 2:35, 4:50, 7:15 p.m.
AUG 14 | MON
4:50, 7:15 p.m.
AUG 15 | TUE
4:50, 7:15 p.m.
AUG 16 | WED
4:50, 7:15 p.m.
AUG 17 | THU
4:50, 7:15, 9:25 p.m.
AUG 18 | FRI
4:50, 7:05, 9:20 p.m.
AUG 19 | SAT
12:20, 2:35, 4:50, 7:05, 9:20 p.m.
AUG 20 | SUN
12:20, 2:35, 4:50, 7:05 p.m.
AUG 21 | MON
4:50, 7:05 p.m.
AUG 22 | TUE
4:50, 7:05 p.m.
AUG 23 | WED
4:50, 7:05 p.m.
AUG 24 | THU
4:50, 7:05, 9:20 p.m.Â
REVIEWS
“Showing Up is a portrait of an individual but the film is universal in the sense that it’s about a woman living in the concrete here and now.”
“It’s about who will turn out to be firmly on Lizzy’s side when all is said and done… The answer surprises her as well as us, and it brings this wincingly funny, stealthily emotional movie to a conclusion that feels both casual and momentous.”
“Like the distinctive artwork made by Showing Up’s sculptor protagonist, Kelly Reichardt’s eighth feature is beautifully crafted, a modest gem that grows in impact the more one examines it.”