Certain Women starring Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams & Laura Dern: Four Women & A Movie at #Sundance

Kristen Stewart with Certain Women director, Kelly Reichardt 

We all know there’s a humungous gulf between the number of films made by women, as well as by people of color, and their white male counterparts. Despite being the very supportive mother of a young, white, male aspiring filmmaker, I’m trying to pay extra attention when minority filmmakers battle the disparity and get their movies made. Fingers crossed that Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women, based on stories by Maile Meloy and making its debut at Sundance this weekend, gives us something to sing about. It certainly has some popular star power in Kristen Stewart, Laura Dern and Michelle Williams. 

Michelle Williams in Certain Women

Here’s the imdb synopsis: 

Certain Women drops us into a handful of intersecting lives across Montana. A lawyer (Laura Dern) tries to diffuse a hostage situation and calm her disgruntled client (Jared Harris), who feels slighted by a workers' compensation settlement. A married couple (Michelle Williams and James Le Gros) breaks ground on a new home but exposes marital fissures when they try to persuade an elderly man to sell his stockpile of sandstone. A ranch hand (Lily Gladstone) forms an attachment to a young lawyer (Kristen Stewart), who inadvertently finds herself teaching a twice-weekly adult education class, four hours from her home.

Lily Gladstone image via the Missoulian

Lily Gladstone, the young woman who plays the ranch hand, is a young actress who just weeks before she was cast, was herself working as a ranch hand. She told the Missoulian the film is ‘an ensemble-drama, three-act structure, with four leads who don’t necessarily interact with one another.’  

The movie debuts this Sunday, January 24th. I don’t see a trailer yet.