Critics have been falling all over themselves to worship Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy, starring Michelle Williams. What no one is saying is that Wendy is possibly the dumbest lead character ever captured on film and the whole film is filled with plot holes. Just how irritating can one 80-minute film be? Let’s count the ways (spoilers follow).

1). She drives from Indiana to Alaska with her dog, Lucy. Considering how often we see Wendy count up her remaining money, it’s hard to imagine how a cross-country drive could possibly be any cheaper than a plane ticket. But hey, maybe she’s just whimsical!

2.) When Wendy’s car breaks down, she ignores the gas station as a means of help despite her trips to the bathroom there for sponge baths. Wendy decides instead to wait for a garage to open, rather than asking someone at the shiny gas station for assistance. Whimsy is starting to resemble idiocy.

3.) Wendy loses Lucy. The whole plot revolves around Wendy losing her dog, so it must be an accident, right? Unfortunately not. Wendy is arrested for stealing a can of dog food, and somehow forgets to mention to anyone in charge that Lucy is tied up in the parking lot—in full view of the store’s doors—until she’s being driven away in the back of a cop car. Since she was sitting in the grocery store’s manager’s office, being questioned about the dog food in her bag, it’s hard to believe she forgot all about the reason she’s being arrested.

4.) When Wendy realizes Lucy is missing, she wanders around the streets screeching the dog’s name. Eventually, when someone else has the bright idea of checking the pound, she makes a tediously long trip there instead of using a pay phone. Guess what? Lucy’s not there.

5.) Wendy does eventually find Lucy (by which point you’ll never want to hear the name “Lucy” again). The pound apparently took the dog in, and then immediately let it be adopted. Unless the pounds in Washington State are actually sophisticated dognapping rings, giving away a dog the same day it’s been found tied to a pole hardly sounds likely. But hey, as long as Wendy and Reichardt have the chance to show us how hard it is to be poor in America, what are a few inconsistencies? But if Wendy is supposed to represent poverty in America today, she doesn’t really do much except prove the stereotype that poor people are just idiots who don’t know how to make or manage money.

Photo courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories.