Art speaks.
Granted, it can speak differently, even incoherently, at times. We don’t always understand what it’s saying. Sometimes even the artist may wonder.
At other times, we see it, understand, and find ourselves transported. Art can sing. Art can whisper. Art can shriek.
Lizzy’s an artist.
In a half-closed garage, she molds her figures from clay: they may dance or pick flowers; eat or cry or stand, arms folded. Countless fingermarks can be seen on each, smoothing or pressing or molding. She paints them in vibrant colors and coats them with glaze. They’ll be the star attractions of her first-ever show—if she can get them done on time.
Too bad life keeps interrupting.
Her apartment has no hot water. Hasn’t for weeks. Sometimes, the shower offers tepid hope for a minute or two before the whole mess turns icy. Her landlord, Jo, has promised to take care of it. But she’s an artist, too, and you know how they can be.
Lizzie’s family is one big headache as well. Her parents divorced some time ago, and Lizzie technically works for her mother, Jean, at a local art school. In an environment filled with free-spirited eccentrics, Jean’s the one who pays the bills and works with spreadsheets, while Lizzie shuffles papers and designs brochures. (Lizzie always gets plenty of compliments on her brochures.) But Jean treats her daughter more brusquely than most of her students.
Lizzie’s dad, Bill, is retired (happily, he says), but a couple of freeloaders have moved into his house and refuse to leave. Bill says he likes the company, but Lizzie’s not so sure.
And then there’s Sean. He’s brilliant, Jean says. (Or crazy, Lizzie thinks.) He lives alone, mumbling about the neighbors and eating spaghetti out of a can.
But the biggest distraction, by far, is the bird.
It was Lizzie’s fault, really. Or, more fairly, Lizzie’s cat’s fault. A pigeon somehow got in the house and the cat got it. Lizzie shooed away the cat, but not before it broke the bird’s wing. Lizzie quickly pushed it outside. “Go die somewhere else,” she whispered.
The next morning, Jo walked up to her, holding the pigeon in her hands. “I found this poor bird,” Jo said. She had bandaged the poor pigeon up. But she couldn’t watch the feathered patient—not today. She had a show to install.
Lizzie pleads that she has a show to prepare for, too. But no matter.
So Lizzie works, in her half-open garage. A bandaged bird sits, cooing, in a cardboard box. A cat mews and paws from the other side of a door. And Lizzie presses new arms on her figures, pushes fingers into clay. Delicate pieces, frail and homely. But somehow strong, somehow beautiful.
Lizzie says not a word. She rarely does. But her art speaks. And what it says may depend on who’s listening.
Lizzie is not particularly likable. She rarely says anything, and when she does, it’s often to complain. She’s about as warm as a Great Lakes February.
But for all her brusqueness, she shows an impressive capacity to care. We see that in her concern for her family, but it’s most obvious when it comes to the bird—the very one that she shooed away to die. When the bird starts wheezing, Lizzie whisks the pigeon to the veterinarian, then buys it a tiny hot-water bottle to keep it warm. When Jo returns to reclaim the bird, Lizzie frets that Jo’s not being responsible enough, taking over whenever she can. Lizzie may act like everything’s an imposition, but underneath her icy reserve lies a well of compassion.
And while those around Lizzie often overlook her (or quickly grow exasperated by her attitude), a new teacher seems to take Lizzie under her own wing. The teacher, Marlene, compliments her for her brochures at first. Then, when she learns that Lizzie sculpts, she takes a strong interest in her work and introduces her to a friend who owns an honest-to-goodness gallery.
We hear a teacher talk about how someone uses “glass as a religious vessel for Gnostic meditation.”
A male model, apparently late, dashes into an art class and sheds his towel—posing in the nude for the assembled painters. They, and we, see him in full.
Jo opens her own apartment to an overnight guest—one whom Lizzie may have also had a bit of a crush on. When Jo and his guest arrive, we see Lizzie tense up. And after the guest leaves the next morning (whistling his way out the door), Lizzie seems especially rude to Jo.
We don’t see any acts of violence, but the threat of it seems to hover over the movie like a hazy cloud.
Lizzie’s cat catches the pigeon off camera, and it seems to be playing with the bird (as cats do) when Lizzie barges in and shoos the feline away. Lizzie can see the pigeon is injured, but she ushers the animal out the door and takes care of the mess (a pile of feathers) in the morning.
Sean seems to struggle with some sort of mental malady, and when Lizzie goes to visit him one day, she finds him in his backyard, furiously digging a massive hole. Later, when Lizzie tells her show’s organizer that Sean might be coming, the organizer—apparently familiar with Sean—anxiously asks whether he will break anything.
Jo ties a rope into a noose—which she then uses to suspend a tire from a tree. She crawls under a truck to retrieve a fallen phone. Someone mocks Lizzie for taking the pigeon to the vet, saying that he and his friends would shoot pigeons with BB guns.
One f-word, one s-word and a couple of other foul utterances, including “a–” and “h—.” God’s name is misused four times, and Jesus’ name is abused once.
Wine is quaffed and savored during art shows. A party features revelers drinking and smoking. Jo announces that she’s going to buy cigarettes.
Lizzie and Jo’s injured bird is cooped up in a cardboard box for most of the movie, and that box (covered in newspaper) apparently gets pretty messy. Lizzie says “gross” when looking at it at one juncture, and she warns Jo to check on the box often. It doesn’t take long for it to get disgusting, Lizzie adds.
Most folks are calling Showing Up a comedy. But don’t expect to laugh much.
I don’t mean to suggest it’s a bad movie. Starring five-time Oscar nominee Michelle Williams, Showing Up is a sharp, subtle character study, as enigmatic as modern art itself can be.
The movie is full of long pauses and introspective moments, encouraging us to lean in and think about what we’re seeing—a little like we might consider a Picasso or Pollack. The film doesn’t make it easy on us: It comes with loads of ambiguity and plenty of open loops. Do Bill’s houseguests ever leave? Does Sean start taking medication? Does Lizzie sell any of her art? Does she even want to?
If Showing Up was part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we’d surely learn the answers to these and all sorts of other questions in the four sequels that would follow. But Showing Up is not that sort of movie. And so—as, again is the case with art—we’re asked to fill in the blanks ourselves. To wonder what happens outside the frame.
The movie could’ve floated through with a PG-13 rating if not for a truly throwaway scene featuring a nude male model. Take out two choice words, and this is a slam-dunk PG. But even if its makers did make those 12 seconds worth of edits, Showing Up still isn’t one a lot of kids would be clamoring to watch.
This is a film for adults—and ones with patience to boot. To a certain viewer, it, like art, will speak, perhaps powerfully. But for others, it might simply lull them to sleep.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
