Certain women stand out in 'Certain Women'

• Critic's rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Some movies make you feel as if nothing much going on.

Kelly Reichardt makes those kind of films. They move along at their own pace, and it’s not until they’re over that you realize the characters were living their lives in natural-seeming ways. So what’s going on is the most important thing of all: life.

Granted, that results in some, shall was say, patient filmmaking. “Certain Women” is no different. The payoff is found in that patience, of which there is much required, as it was in Reichardt films like “Wendy and Lucy” and “Meek’s Cutoff.” But it yields rewards.

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“Certain Women,” based on short stories by Maile Meloy, takes place in a small Montana town, with gray skies and blowing snow. There are three parts, tangentially connected by a few characters overlapping, though the connections don’t drive the story.

In the first, we meet Laura Wells (Laura Dern), a lawyer with a married lover (James Le Gros) and a handful of a client, Fuller (Jared Harris). Fuller suffered a head injury on the job and wants to sue. His employer clearly was negligent, but he accepted a small settlement that prevents him from getting anything more.

It’s not for lack of trying. We learn that Laura has been explaining this to Fuller for months; it’s only when a male lawyer tells him the same thing that he is resigned to his fate. Or not — he decides to grab a gun and take a hostage. In a Reichardt film this kind of action is akin to the world blowing up in a James Bond film. But she does the hostage situation her way: We’re never really afraid. We just feel kind of sorry for Fuller, whom Laura has kept at a professional distance, and we see Laura’s weary frustration.

The second story finds Laura’s lover in a tent in the freezing woods with his wife, Gina (Reichardt staple Michelle Williams), and their daughter, Guthrie (Sara Rodier); Gina seems distant from both. This portion concerns Gina, clearly the leader of the family, going with her husband to talk an elderly relation out of some sandstones he has on his property. We certainly get the idea that Gina is headstrong and controlling (her frequent pleas of, “But we’ll pay” sound condescending), and that their marriage is not exactly perfect. Of course we knew that already, from the previous segment. As portraits of unsuccessful marriages go, the acting is good but we’ve seen better.

The third segment is the best. Jamie (Lily Gladstone), a Native American woman evidently living by herself — and this is a lonely looking place to begin with – is taking care of horses when we meet her. There’s something about the way that Reichardt shoots these scenes that lets you know the horses and her dog are her only source of companionship.

One night she follows a group of people into a building, seemingly on a whim. It’s an adult-education class on school law, and when the instructor, a lawyer named Beth (Kristen Stewart), walks in, Jamie is transfixed.

Beth isn’t. Not with Jamie or anything else. She uses much of the class to complain about her four-hour commute both ways to teach it. But she and Jamie go out to eat after class, and gradually become, if not friends, certainly acquaintances. The difference in how they perceive this budding relationship is genuinely affecting, and ultimately heartbreaking.

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The acting is good throughout the film, but Gladstone and Stewart are a step up from everyone else. It’s tempting to say it could have been a feature all on its own, but as it stands it’s nearly perfect, making an already solid “Certain Women” that much better.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: twitter.com/goodyk.

'Certain Women,' 4 stars

Director: Kelly Reichardt.

Cast: Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart, Laura Dern.

Rating: R for some language.

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