User Reviews

A stark and deliberate downer of a character study, Barbara Loden's Wanda is a captivating and unfairly forgotten addition to the indie American New Wave, that also shows the indie American New Wave what 'indie' REALLY means. The film's theatrical non-history is well documented in each review of the film: Wanda was screened, briefly, in one theater in New York, was fairly acclaimed, then vanished, before being championed by the European crowd a decade later, and perhaps finally getting a bit of the credit it deserves by appearing on the TSPDT top 1000 films list, which was, like many other obscurities, excellent and terrible alike, my impetus for seeing it.

The film is a grim and protracted look at a aimless, desultory layabout named Wanda (director Barbara Loden). She abandons her husband and children (we are witness to their divorce proceedings, he annoyed and impatient, she blank and tardy), and hers is a life filled with ennui and survival. She sleeps on couches, drinks and smokes to excess and goes home with men just to have a roof over her head. One night, she enters a closed bar, and finds a pacing man named Mr. Dennis (Michael Higgins) who turns out to be robbing the place. She follows him back to his hotel room, and ends up accompanying him on a sort of pseudo-road trip (in a stolen car, no less), packed to the gills with the Cassavetes special: two broken people (one volatile and dominating, the other crumpling and submissive) who somehow sort of counteract one another.

There is an emptiness to this film that recalls the ennui of the characters in one of the all-time greats, Antonioni's L'Avventura, but here, it's saddening in a more personal way because we are meant to empathize with the wastrel at the film's core. She is a hollow vacuum, devoid of interest and barren of meaning, so she is constantly on the move, but oblivious and unable to attach herself in any meaningful way to anything in her world. By the time she's getting inexplicably drafted into a bank robbery, it becomes clear that perhaps she's content to stay with Dennis simply because he'll put up with her and never follows through on his threats of expulsion.

Wanda features a cast of stiff, amateurish male actors, with an actress at its core whose performance is virtuoso in its realism. There's not a single moment in the film that doesn't feel natural, and with its slow pace, down-to-earth plot line, and the rough graininess of the film stock itself (it was filmed on 16mm and blown up to 35mm), it resembles nothing more than a heartbreaking bit of documentary film-making, as I have absolutely zero doubt that there are hundreds upon thousands of people in these exact sort of situations, uninhabited shells sleepwalking through life, finding nothing and accepting it readily..

Barbara Loden, despite being married to a fellow director, Elia Kazan, made this film, and this film only, and it's really quite sad in its own right. It took John Cassavetes, an acknowledged master, 15 years to make something in this style with the confidence and impact that Barbara Loden got on her first try, and really, I feel shortchanged because, unlike her titular character, Barbara Loden had all the potential in the world, but sadly, almost none of that energy became kinetic, as this heartbreaking f_ck-up ended up her last cinematic will and testament. But the legacy of Wanda endures, and I hope this review will do as much as possible to strengthen it.

{Grade: 8.75/10 (A-/B+) / #5 (of 28) of 1970}

Beautiful and talented, Barbara Loden (1932-1980) emerged from rural "white trash" poverty in Depression-era Marion, North Carolina to become a cover girl, Broadway and film actress (best remembered for her role as Ginny Stamper, Warren Beatty's sister in Splendor in the Grass), a budding feminist, and the second wife of Elia Kazan. 'Wanda' is Loden's only film—sadly she died of cancer at age 48 while planning a film version of Kate Chopin's 'The Awakening'—but what a film is 'Wanda' Written, directed by, and starring Loden, 'Wanda' follows the misfortunes of the sort of woman that Loden might have become had she not been so gifted. Inspired by a newspaper story about Wanda Garanowski, a woman so meek and demoralized she actually thanked a judge for sending her to prison, Loden created Wanda Goronski, a dispirited thirty-something working-class derelict from the coal country of north- central Pennsylvania with no real life prospects. Legally deemed an unfit mother, Wanda is stripped of her children and separated from her exasperated husband. A desultory attempt at employment in a mill soon ends in dismissal. At loose ends, Wanda meets Mr. Norman Dennis (Michael Higgins), a tough-talking low life drifter who is in the midst of robbing a bar that Wanda wanders into. Mr. Dennis treats Wanda like dirt but she passively accepts his abuse as appropriate to her lowly station in life. Eventually Dennis dies in a botched bank robbery, leaving Wanda to once again fend for herself in a brutally indifferent world. So much for plot but plot is secondary; 'Wanda' is essentially a character study depicting the life of a representative semi-literate blue-collar woman. As Loden told interviewer McCandlish Phillips, Wanda's "trapped and she will never, ever get out of it and there are millions like her" (New York Times March 11, 1971, p. 32). At a time when affluent professionals like Gloria Steinem were leading the so-called "second wave" feminist movement, Barbara Loden had the political courage and wherewithal to link women's oppression to social class: a move that makes 'Wanda' an enduringly valuable social document. Shot and edited by Loden and cinema verité documentary filmmaker Nicholas Proferes, 'Wanda' has a grim, gritty immediacy that makes for an unforgettable viewing experience. Lost to the world for 35 years, Wanda was commendably released in 2006 by Parlour Pictures, a new DVD label.

"Wanda" is an interesting exercise in cinematic minimalism, a telling portrayal of alienation and loneliness....and what seems to be a deliberate attack (by a woman, no less!) on the emerging feminism of the 1970s. The heroine's passivity, relatable at first, becomes off-putting; much like Claude Chabrol in the previous year's "Le Boucher", Barbara Loden fails to make her attraction to the ugly, violent and insulting to her man she meets believable. She wrote and directed herself in a peculiarly masochistic role. **1/2 out of 4.

and I don't have a background that remotely resembles Wanda's.

When we first meet Wanda she is sleeping on her sister's couch. Her sister's baby is crying inconsolably, her brother-in-law gives Wanda a derisive look and says he won't have any coffee as he leaves for work. Wanda tells her sister that he is angry for her being there, and she's probably right. Wanda looks out the window and all she can see for miles is a Pennsyvania coal slag - no trees, no grass, no flowers. So this dismal existence is that of the SUCCESSFUL sister! Next we see Wanda walking across the coal country, her hair in curlers. She is headed to court and she is late. In the meantime, her husband is bad mouthing her to the judge, saying that she is always drunk, not watching the kids. When Wanda finally enters the courtroom, her children don't even acknowledge her as mom. Wanda, a woman beaten down by life in her 20s, says her husband can have whatever he wants, that the kids will be better off with him.

Afterwards, she goes to somebody she worked two days for as a seamstress in an assembly line environment and says she has not gotten all of her pay. In spite of the fact that the guy is lying to her and cheating her, she says she still wants a job there. The employer tells her she is too slow, not even good enough to do the dullest and most mechanical of jobs. She goes to a bar, and the next scene is in a seedy motel room, with Wanda asleep and a man she met in the bar, obviously regretting that Wanda didn't automatically disintegrate past the point of consummation, is readying to run out on her, except she awakens, dresses quickly, and jumps into his car just as he peels off. They stop at an ice cream stand, and as she gets out he uses this opportunity to escape. She then goes to a movie, falls asleep, and her purse is robbed of all its money AND her comb for good measure. All of this is necessary to show how Wanda is accustomed to being treated when she meets HIM - Norman Dennis.

That night at closing time she wanders into a bar to use the restroom. Anybody else would notice this guy is not your typical friendly bartender .He just keeps barking "Are you taking a bath in there? Hurry up!" Behind the counter we see the real bartender gagged and bound. We now know what Wanda does not - Mr. Dennis is a robber and Wanda was the customer he was not counting on. She has a couple of drinks and then they leave together.

From this point forward Mr. Dennis never explains himself at all. He spends his time barking commands and insults to her, telling her to not ask questions, saying she can come along with him if she wants, telling her how to dress when she is around him and throwing her old clothes out the window as they drive down the highway. She doesn't question his actions - his treatment of her as a combination beast of burden, verbal punching bag, and prostitute that does not get paid. He sees her low self esteem and exploits it. This guy is just such a seemingly heartless stone cold character, UNTIL he goes to see his dad. Here he actually shows some humanity. Dennis tries to give his dad a few bucks, but even dad, through the fog of dementia, gives the money back and talks about him being a bad guy and rejects him.

Wanda continues to call Norman, "Mr. Dennis", as though he were her fourth grade teacher, for the rest of the film. He never calls Wanda by any name - she is an "it" to him and he likes it that way. The only time he shows any gentleness is when he needs her to commit a really big crime, and then that gentleness only consists of calling her by her first name and telling her she CAN do this thing he is asking of her. I'll let you watch the details of the big heist they attempt - I'll just say that Dennis winds up dead, Wanda is so anonymous that nobody comes looking for her as a possible accomplice, and the last scene is her in a bar with a bunch of strangers, seemingly mourning this guy who treated her worse than anybody would ever treat a dog, and yet she is sorry he is gone - because he is the only person in her life that maybe didn't want her around but allowed her to be around.

"Wanda" is definitely a film written from a woman's perspective. Barbara Loden wrote, directed, and starred in this film that was panned when first released, ironically by feminists! I love the photography and symbolism. Why does Wanda wear her hair down when asleep, but puts it in curlers on an important day in her life - when she has to appear in court AND go looking for employment? So many of the shots of Wanda are long shots - we don't see her expression because there is no expression to see - Wanda is a person living life in an emotional void. And imagine how hard it must have been to direct someone (Michael Higgens as Norman Dennis) to act so rock hard for the entire length of the film. And the little touch of the never explained wedding ring on his finger just adds to this guy's air of mystery.

Interestingly enough, Barbara Loden had a posthumous "Wanda" experience herself. Elia Kazan, her widowed husband, claimed after Loden's death that HE actually wrote this film and just gave it to her so she'd have something of her own! Highly recommended but very quirky!

I wanted to like this movie. I was rooting for it all the way through. There was a lack of female directors in the early 70s. And there still is. But all I can say after watching it is ..."eh..." I liked seeing the footage of Pennsylvania circa 1970-71. As another reviewer pointed out, seeing now-defunct stores such as Woolworth's, lends the film a certain poignancy. Also interesting to see billboards and labels for products still in circulation (Skippy peanut butter, TastyKake baked goods, etc.) A scene with the titular character in the mall, staring at mannequins, is interesting because the mall looks strangely modern, vintage fashions aside -- it's just a mall with people walking through it, same as today. But there's another reason this scene is interesting, and I wish there were more like it in the film: The mannequins look a lot like Wanda, and in a sense they embody her vacancy. Nice trope. Problem is, there's just too much vacancy in this character for us to truly latch on to her, feel sympathy for her, understand her motives.

Maybe that's Ms. Loden's point as a director (did she write this too?) She wants us to witness a drifter, a scattered, not-too-bright woman with alcohol problems, at her lowest point, abandoning her family and hooking up with a grifter who orders her around. I suppose that while watching this film we're supposed to feel the same frustration many of us feel when we see such people looking obviously lost and loser-like in dive bars at noon on a workday, or panhandling on a city street, or dozing off on the subway. We don't know what's going on in their heads any more than we do what's going on in Wanda's head, or for that matter, the man she becomes embroiled with during a crime spree.

There IS ONE scene where she tells him her children are better off with her ex-husband, because she's "no good." I felt hopeful and grateful at that point to get some rationale behind her stupidity -- the way she kept leaving her purse open for people to steal from her, the way she was "too slow," according to her boss, to keep up with factory work, the way she didn't seem to be able to keep her hair out of her eyes, etc. etc. She didn't seem at all like the feminist hero some reviewers hint at her being. She seemed like an airhead who, even if she'd been able to keep off the bottle, wouldn't have had a clue about how to function in society. But then when she said she was no good, a sad self-mocking statement you could tell she believed -- it made sense to me why she kept getting in abusive situations with men. On top of lacking direction in life, she had no self-esteem. So she latched on to abusers.

Interesting that Loden was planning a film version of THE AWAKENING -- another story about a woman renouncing traditional marital and mothering roles, written nearly a century earlier. But while some may say THE AWAKENING was a proto-feminist text, I see the character of Wanda as an insult to women. It takes a LOT of strength to be a mother and wife, whether you work outside the home or are a stay-at-home mom. Wanda's husband said he had to take care of the kids, make his own breakfast, and go to work, because Wanda did none of those things, instead she lay around drunk. Where does she fit as a feminist role-model in that situation? You could argue that she was opting out of being subservient to her husband and children. But I see her as copping out of running a household. She's either unwilling or unable, or both, to hold a functional marital relationship, to care for her own children, to earn money or contribute to a household in any way. In the opening scene perhaps we are meant to sympathize with Wanda's decision to go solo, as we witness her sister (in-law?) quieting a screaming baby while fixing breakfast for her other child and husband, who stomps out the door in anger at Wanda sleeping on their couch. Nothing to envy there. Yet I found the woman quieting the baby as she navigated the kitchen, to be way more heroic and interesting than Wanda's empty-headed, direction-less activities.

In addition, and this is more of a minor quibble: why the heck wouldn't she and the bank robber wear masks during their heists? Did he want to get caught? Did he like being notorious? Did Wanda feel the same way? We will never know because the script doesn't provide for these answers, which is a shame.

If you like watching a beautiful, sad, not-terribly-smart woman wandering around barely keeping her life together, I suggest watching Michelle Williams in WENDY AND LUCY. Both she and Loden display a similar talent at appearing vulnerable and dumb. At least in WENDY AND LUCY there's some actual suspense about whether she will keep her dog.

There's not another film quite like this one. It was written, directed, and acted in by Barbara Loden on a budget that must barely have exceeded what I have in my wallet.

It's clumsily done in almost every way. The camera is shaky, as if the photographer were in the grips of a hangover. Little incidents take place that must have been accidental. The location shooting is limited to beautiful Scranton, Pennsylvania.

And the plot is relentlessly depressing. Barbara Loden is an attractive women but not dressed as some sort of fetish doll with her blond hair arranged like a sloppily built fire hydrant. The story certainly doesn't glamorize her, nor does it give her an excess of ambition or brains. She's fundamentally decent but has the willfulness of a billiard ball.

The men she meets in her journey around Scranton are all out to exploit her in one way or another. They get her drunk, coerce her into taking part in a bank robbery, try to rape her, and leave her alone way out in the boondocks. She's not much when it comes to warmth either. Given a choice, she picks up the pistol and helps her bankrobbing boyfriend. And asked about where her kids are, she replies, "With him," and shrugs, whereas, if someone had asked me that, I'd have said, "With her," and gnashed my teeth.

The freeze frame with which the movie ends -- Wanda alone in a crowd at a bar, drunk, smoking, looking desolately stoned -- has become a cliché, but here, as the camera lingers on her impassive figure, the shot has a point. It impresses on us that the movie (and Wanda) are now definitely at "The End." This made quite a splash on its release. It is the personal project of a woman during the height of feminism and so was terribly PC. The fact is that it's better than that. If this is "feminism," it makes "Thelma and Louise" look like a ragged Chinese imitation designed to bring in the shekels from a less demanding audience.