Dear Wendy

Plot synopsis:
The teenage members of a group of self-proclaimed pacifists decide to carry guns. They call themselves The Dandies. Their club is assembled from the young misfits in a fictional small American mining town, Electric Park. It is started after the main character, Dick (Jamie Bell), buys what he thinks is a toy gun. His co-worker tells him the gun is real, and the two start shooting and studying guns in their spare time. They later recruit other outcasts, young men and one young woman who do not, or cannot, work in the mine, including one boy in leg braces and his younger brother Freddie.
The film is framed by Dick's voiceover, resembling a love letter to his gun Wendy. He is the chosen leader of the group and tells them that their group is a "social experiment" and will reveal their true nature.
The script shares characteristics with earlier von Trier scripts, depicting violence and race relations in the United States in a highly stylized, exaggerated manner and mixing realistic and fantastic elements.
Though more substantial than the bare sound stage of Dogville, Electric Park is reminiscent of a western set on the back lot of a movie studio. The Dandies spend most of their time on this one block or in an abandoned mining shaft that they decorate and call the Temple.
The Dandies have several quirks and idiosyncratic rules. A Dandy may never brandish his weapon in public, but instead gains self-confidence simply knowing he is carrying a concealed weapon. As a badge of membership, they cultivate a 'Brideshead Stutter' (a reference to the character Anthony Blanche in Brideshead Revisited, who also adopts a deliberate stammer). They refuse to say the word 'killing' and instead refer to it as 'loving.' They live up to their name, Dandies, by dressing in colorful, outdated clothing, including vests, long jackets and hats. Though they regularly shoot targets (bull's eyes are oddly common), they spend just as much time playing gun-related games, watching instructional videos and studying diagrams. They use their own personal guns, all antiques with names and back stories, more as props than weapons. Even when they do load and shoot their weapons, they favor style over function (for example, Dick decides to shoot from the hip, Susan uses two guns and works on indirect hits using ricocheted bullets).
Most of the characters in the film are white, save for two: Clarabelle, Dick's loving childhood nanny, and her grandson Sebastian. Sebastian shows up at Dick's house one day with the town sheriff (Bill Pullman). He has been put on probation for a weapons-related crime (he says he "blew a guy away") and has to regularly check in with Dick, whom the sheriff judges to be a good role model. The irony being that Dick and the Dandies spend all of their time using guns. Dick allows Sebastian to break probation and asks him to join the Dandies (Dick sees it as a bit of a Pygmalion), but only if he does everything on their terms.
One day, Sebastian gives them a suspicious box full of guns, and soon breaks a club rule by firing another member's gun. Dick complains that Sebastian is "ruining it for everyone." The group's sole female member, Susan (Alison Pill), takes a shine to Sebastian and this threatens Dick. Freddie suggests that she likes "big schlongs". Like Dick, she lost a parent early on in the film though it doesn't seem to disturb her. Most of the film plays out like a child's game of cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians, and most of the non-Dandies portrayed are police officers and faceless miners.
Sebastian's natural manner is in stark contrast to the affectations of the Dandies, especially the awkward poetry of Dick's voiceover. He speaks like a regular teenager and seems out of place in the one-block world of Electric Park. He points out their oddities, including their strange clothing. He is an outsider among outsiders, but still enlisted in the group.
Sebastian tells Dick that he and his friends carry guns because they're scared, that everyone is scared. He tells them that his grandmother, Dick's former nanny, is too scared of "the gangs" to even leave her home (these vague, mysterious "gangs" had already been mentioned by Dick's boss at Salomon's grocery store, who was terrified of them to the point of a nervous breakdown). Like a good Boy Scout, Dick devises a sort of war plan for assisting Clarabelle on her yearly visit to her cousin's. He believes it is the "decent American" thing to do.
The Dandies accompany Clarabelle on her walk, but she becomes panicked when they encounter a deputy sheriff. There is a scuffle, he tries to help out and the old lady ends up shooting the deputy.
The sheriff asks the Dandies to hand over Clarabelle, even telling them they can keep their guns if they do so. He tells the boys that they are what the country is made of. The Dandies notice his automatic gun, which Dick calls "treacherous," and sense that they are being set up just as several other police officers appear. The Dandies flee to the Temple to hide.
Now outlaws, the Dandies decide to take Clarabelle to her cousin's once and for all. Their decision is based more on principle than practicality, and it is clear that they are willing to martyr themselves. They treat it as a suicide mission, cutting themselves ceremonially and donning their fanciest clothes. Sebastian discovers Dick's now-finished letter to Wendy, which ends with the coded threat: "And now, it's the time of the season for loving" ("loving" is Dandy code for killing).
They head outside one by one, armed, to face the team of shotgun-toting police officers assembled by a legion of squad cars. The first to go, Huey (Chris Owen), tells them "We're not interested in shooting anybody, so don't make us." The Marshall arrives and tells Huey to "Drop the pathetic gun right this minute." He is promptly shot by Huey, who smiles and announces "Officer d-d-down I'm afraid!" before hobbling into gunfire. Huey discovers that he can walk fine without his crutches just as he's gunned down. Meanwhile, a bullet ricochets and hits Clarabelle in the leg as the Dandies continue attempting to escort her to her cousin's house (like all the film's location, it is located within a one-block radius).
Dick realizes that there is a sniper in their midst and sets on shooting the offender down. Susan is the next to shoot, using both of her guns and her carefully honed ricochet method. All the while, white lines and numbers on the screen graphically depicting the trajectories of the Dandies' shots. Susan is shot in the head. Stevie and his gun Badsteel come to her defense and he is shot in the heart.
Sebastian asks Dick "What happened?" and a series of morgue photographs flash across the screen. Only Sebastian, Dick and Freddie remain. The three attempt to drag Clarabelle to safety. Freddie is the next to go. He has tied a cord around his testicles, a tactic with roots in Native American history that he championed earlier on, and grabs his crotch before getting up and firing. He is quickly shot down, rises, then is shot several more times.
Clarabelle stirs and Dick is hit as he comes to her aid, though he manages to get her all the way to her cousin's house. While he is inside, police officers are scanning the windows and lining him up in their guns' sights.
Sebastian remains outside, unharmed and hidden by the door of a police car. He sees Dick's gun, the one he called Wendy, lying in the street and recalls a line of Dick's letter: "Dear Wendy, I always dreamed that if someone were to make that final exit wound in me, it should be you. My saviour." He grabs the gun and then runs inside the home of his grandmother's cousin. He goes upstairs and shoots Dick in the back, mouthing "Dick, [unknown]?"
Dick resembles a pilgrim as he turns around in his buckle hat. His life, at least that which was contained by the film, flashes before his eyes. He examines the exit wound and whispers "Wendy". The police on the roof across the street shoot up the windows and, mostly likely, Sebastian.
All the while, the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" plays in the background.
The film features many tracks by the 1960s pop-rock band The Zombies, including "She's Not There", "Time of the Season". Dick's final words to Wendy in his letter, "it's the time of the season for loving" is a quote from the latter song.

Tags: comedy, boring, murder, allegory, violence, flashback, satire, romantic, storytelling

Review:
"Dear Wendy" comes from the talents that brought us "Festen" and "It's All About Love" (both written and directed by Thomas Vinteberg), "Dogville," "Dancer in the Dark" and "Breaking the Waves" (written and directed by Lars Von Trier).
A film about child misfits and their guns could easily follow thematic red herrings all over the place in pursuit of social commentary, but "Dear Wendy" is utterly restrained - in spite of the "loaded" subject matter.
On the cutting room floor are social commentary, cliché, and many of the cinematic crutches which Trier and Vinterberg rejected in their Dogme 95 days.Any film lover who cares to see a film utterly committed to its premise, a film made with economy and efficiency, a film full of sweet irony, a film of deceptive simplicity, would do well to check out "Dear Wendy.".
In some sense it bears resemblance to the village set on Brechtian stage in "Dogville" (compare for example the "stageness" of main street) by Lars von Trier, whose touch can be seen in "Dear Wendy", too.It can be also seen as an anti-gun lecture - but that is just one perspective to it and in my opinion also possible to ignore.The only turnoff is the somewhat annoying narration by the main character, that explains too much and leaves less for the viewer to ponder.
You want a good film about violence and the gun culture in America?
And it should come as no surprise that some intelligent foreigner who reads deeply about America might be capable of writing a credible screenplay about our national foibles."Dear Wendy" is set in an unnamed mining town sometime before the present day, probably the 1960s, judging from the musical soundtrack.
Stevie, as it happens, has an obsessive passion for guns, gun history and the workings of guns.These two hit upon a plan: why not start a little club, a cult of losers and outcast young people, the town's stray kids, and bring a little honor, pride and some decent principles of conduct into their lives.
Without getting into further particulars, I will say that the final shootout between The Dandies and Pullman's legion is conducted with an awesome display of police firepower that absolutely resembles the massive use of high tech weaponry that we are accustomed to witnessing when America goes to war, whether abroad or in quelling domestic uprisings (think of Fallujah and Waco).All the actors I have named deliver good turns.
The sound track features several songs by the 60s British pop/rock band, The Zombies, including their great hits, "She's Not There" and "Time of the Season." More than anything, to me this film feels a lot like a couple of Gus Van Sant's movies.
The Dandies adopt period costumes as well as arcane, stylized manners like the street people in "My Own Private Idaho," and the notion of outcast young people bearing weapons, of course, permeates "Elephant," in a similarly lyrical manner.I think "Dear Wendy" is a powerful film, brimming with poetic truth about us.
He falls pretty much in love with this gun, names it Wendy, and forms a type of gang; The Dandies, who are pacifists although they do love their weapons.Obviously, things do not work out well.The whole style of the film is strange.
Thomas Vinterberg has finally reemerged from the disaster that was "It's all about love", and with help from compatriot Lars Von Trier he has delivered a hugely original and entertaining film.
I think this story could have been told with other means too...that the subject used, guns, was maybe just a way to get the point a bit dramatized, but also the possibility to show the severe consequence off not being true to what made one strong, loosing the integrity so to speak.
And there are more subtle references: a chart from one of the bullets reads Full Metal Jacket, etc.Although directed by his friend Vinterberg the story is written by von Trier and bears all the marks of a von Trier-movie, but this time it is deeply drawn up in irony.
A typical Von Trier-story always watches like literature: idealist gains strength from his beliefs but is confronted by the real world (in this case an ex-con), his beliefs are shaken and self-imposed rules are broken.
The "perversion" of the group's innocence by Sebastian's reality-tempered attitudes are all too typically applied to a young black man, and the only one in the county, and hence, the plot goes crashing to the ground as yet another inescapable fall from paradise.Whatever Kubrick-reaching attempts of psychedelic grandeur that the director tries to conjure up never manage to hit home through the potentially interesting lens of the group's fascination with guns, nor do they provide an experience that has not been seen 100 times before, because of the focus on trippy nouveau montages instead of the characters' individual depth.Ultimately, the attraction of the gun to Dick is that he feels more powerful, more self-assured carrying it.
It's casual and distant, barely affecting you or showing an interest, a bit like the teenage characters it is portraying, who, by the way, have set up a 'pacifist gun club' where the guns have names and are carried in public but never brandished.
"Dear Wendy" is about a group of young losers, who develop strength and backbone from carrying and firing guns.
Written by USA critic Lars Von Trier, the movie conveys a negative opinion of American gun laws.
The voice-over is reasonably justified; still the best scenes in the movie are the few that are allowed to stand on their own.The splendid pale pictures are done by Anthony Dod Mantle, who worked on both Thomas Vinterberg and Lars Von Trier's latest movies ("It's All About Love" and "Dogville").
I'm not sure that that makes the film any better but it's more interesting than the over-worn gun violence idea...
Rules are simple in the club each member has a gun they name but don't use and they dress up like Adam ant's prince charming and dance around the town all confident in their ability to hide behind the weapons.
A very poor film from writer Lars Von trier and director Thomas Vinterberg, with these two's back catalogue I would have expected more.
Dear Wendy is a movie about a group of young people building a secret club named "The Dandies".
Working in English writer Lars von Trier and director Thomas Vinterberg tackle American gun culture in a highly original and deeply disturbing fashion; it's the kind of satire I can't imagine an American film-maker making.
It's about a group of young misfits in an American mining town who form a 'pacifist' gun club.
When they allow a young gun-loving criminal into the group you might think things are going to go badly and they do, but not quite in the way you might expect.Young British actor Jamie Bell is excellent as the boy who founds the club and Danso Gordon is outstanding as the young criminal who, at first, challenges his authority but who turns out to be perhaps the most sensible member of this strange gang.
however, this movie has so many high points that i completely glad i did not break down because otherwise i wouldn't have seen its amazing conclusion i loved its self contained setting, its amazing soundtrack (provided by The Zombies), and most of all its amazing philosophy.
Case in point, here we have the Von Trier-written "Dear Wendy" directed by his Dogma 95 partner, Thomas Vinterburg.
I know a lot of people will read this and automatically respond " well he just didn't get it"...no, I got it perfectly fine, but that doesn't change it into a good movie, in fact it just underlines how bad this movie is, that with so many ideals, points and views about guns and kids this movie just fails to deliver them in any type of way that makes it worth watching..
The option was to go to the next town and see The worlds fastest Indian, which I have seen already and think is very beautiful and moving film, and really wanted to see it as I was down and needed a comforting experience but we would have had to bus it and had not enough time.
The movie is about a young man somewhere in America who lives an unremarkable life punctuated by the occasional tragedy who goes out and does the unheard of and starts a gun club.
I must warn you that there is a 50-50 chance of you hating the movie, going out buying a gun and committing some anti social act but on the other hand if you love it you will really love it.
This is a story about a kid in a mining town that falls in love with a gun and starts writing it love letters in a diary that then becomes the never-ending voice over for this movie.
So i know from experience that anything that involves Lars is definitely something not to miss...He is someone who challenges film, its ideas and the audience.As you may know one of the main character is Richard (dick), Jamie Bell who is more famously known as Billy Elliot.
The rest of the teenage outcast join forces to form their club...the performances of these character are a top standard and we can see the development of each of them.Don't worry this movie is not about all guns blazing...
This is great story telling and challenges the concept of guns in America...both on the streets and the cops...Its not you typical Hollywood movie...its something more then that Just watch it and you'll see how much better film festival and non Hollywood movies are.
The next time I see the name of Lars von Trier on a movie I'll turn away and do something else.
What comments I have so far read about Dear Wendy seem to be a case of the emperor's new clothes, or the writers were watching a different movie.
Lars von Trier(who, like another reviewer points out, has never set foot in the US) is very critical of America, and his views and opinions on the country as expressed in this film are skewed and quite in contrast with reality.
I'm going to be honest and say that I don't know exactly what writer Lars Von Trier and director Thomas Vinterberg were trying to say with this offbeat drama about a group of misfit pacifist youths who form a gun club—that a gun will inevitably be used to kill, perhaps?—but I still found it reasonably enjoyable, especially the final act, in which the gang sacrifice themselves to deliver a packet of coffee.Everything leading up to that point has a certain quirky charm about it, as the small-town losers (played by Jamie Bell, Michael Angarano, Chris Owen, Alison Pill, Mark Webber and Danso Gordon) discover friendship and confidence, but what follows is so bonkers that I couldn't help be entertained.
The latest movie by Danish director Thomas Vinterberg (of the over-rated The Celebration) - written by talentless hack Lars von Trier - is a steaming pile of a turgid mess about a boy who is in love with his gun!
I liked Festen and Lars von Triers Dogville so the talents of the two directors combined should be able to lead to a very interesting movie.
As it had been directed by Thomas Vinterberg & written by Lars Von Trier & they're mostly known for their Dogma-movement, I feared an inaccessible arty farty movie!
Little later he falls in love with a revolver which he names Wendy, starts a club called The Dandies, who are 'pacifists with guns', write poetry & listen to the sixties band The Zombies.
In Vinterberg's new film, Dear Wendy, the Zombies' lyrics are turned on their heads with great effect.
Dear Wendy is a reasonably subtle cult movie that bears strong links to the work of von Trier (who wrote it) and all sorts of interpretations about gun culture..
Centrally the characters dress and sense of honour as well as there insistence on using old fashioned guns is an interesting study in today's youths obsession with "retro" and also the contradiction of guns and pacifism is reminiscent of modern teenagers left wing crusades conflicting with their obsessive consumerism.The supporting performances are solid, if a little too mannered, but Jamie Bell's protagonist is difficult to place - quite spiteful and too disaffected to consider the fatal consequences of his actions.All in all this is an enjoyable film, with a none to0 subtle nor fresh, but always relevant message at the end that lacks the cold, bleak reality of some of Von Trier's and Vinterberg's earlier work.
Just like they are doing with a lot of other films.The talent is to make a good movie, with a message underneath that works.
And we all know that is possible, but hey, we all know the directors who can.To finish I can conclude:Dear Wendy is a movie who tries to forces something out, it is really sluggish and doesn't give a lot of entertaining value, nor makes it people think.
Dear Wendy, you're the second Lars von Trier film I saw.
He gets a job at a store, buys a toy-gun, and falls into an obsessive world and recruits others to form a group called the Dandies.This movie continue to take us into a fantasy world where reason starts to drift away.
Thomas Vinterberg surprised a lot of people(included me)with his second movie called Festen.But,after Festen,he went from making an excellent movie to making a pathetic movie like It's all about love.I had a lot of expectations with Dear Wendy,Vinterberg's most recent film.The plot sounded really good.But Dear Wendy was a very big deception for me.This movie is very pretentious and boring.Lamentably,the movie had good potential because the weapon's theme is very interesting to develop,but on this movie it is developed really bad.Only Bill Pullman's performance on this movie is good,because the other performances are really mediocre.In summary,don't waste your time nor your money on this film..
Coming after Lars Von Trier's (for me) disappointing "Dogville" (which i found redundant and poorly-executed), "Dear Wendy" is another step down for the once-interesting auteur.
I get the feeling that Von Trier just gave this throw-away script to his friend Vinterberg so that he could try to make a "break through" film for American teenage audiences.
"Dear Wendy" is a pretentious film about some outcasts who form a secret group that tries to praise gun ownership and pacifism at the same time.
The film probably also tries to pick up the controversial theme of gun ownership in America particularly.I liked the premise of "Dear Wendy".
When preparing a (ridiculous) plan to do something good for someone else and simultaneously regain the harmony within the group we finally come to the point where something had to go wrong but the way this happens in neither dramatic nor believable.The film has a rather comical approach and stylized look to it.
I think too much of entertainment doesn't serve the themes at all here and the film goes way over the top and makes the characters feel hardly authentic but more like comic figures.
that guns don't make you happy or whatever ...Well, I think I have said enough and I think this film is silly.I can't recommend "Dear Wendy" on any basis..
I found this film like a year ago or so and mostly I wanted to watch it just because Lars von Trier wrote it.
Pacifists in love with guns, well that's what this film shows, a bunch of young and intelligent persons that became even brilliant in what they were doing, these persons were living in their own little world with their own rules and rituals and since they were pacifists everything seems to be just a game and seems that these kids knew what they were doing.
Sure in their world they had their own believes and sure they were pacifist but everything was turned around the guns so is the time of the season for loving...A very strange photography and great performances; I hated Billy Eliot but here Bell is great as the main role as that lonely kid that began having even an obsession, a madness that after all ended in the only possible way he would like to and that resume everything, what a gun could made in him, in his mind.
They swear never to use or show their weapons outside the abandoned mine they are using as a shooting range, but of course, it all goes wrong in the end.Persiflaging American gun culture, small towns and westerns, the movie contains several themes.
I went to see Dear Wendy thinking that it was some kind of statement about guns.
I was pretty disappointed with Lars von Trier (the writer of this movie) after having seen "Dogville".
So when I went to see "Dear Wendy", it was like I already knew that the emperor had no clothes on.The movie is kind of confusing for the audience but toward the end it dawned on me that it is in fact a very dark comedy (more than anything it was the testicle thing that gave it away).
There has been so much talk about the serious "message" (anti-gun/anti-American) of the movie that it makes me wonder.I've read several times that the original script by Lars von Trier was about a bunch of thirty-somethings.
If they had stuck to that concept, it would have been a lot like Trier's earlier movie "The Idiots" only with guns.
Considered to be a fan of both Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier, I was very disappointed about this film.