Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt, 2023). Kelly Reichardt demonstrates again that she’s a modern master of small, resoundingly human stories. Working from a screenplay coauthored with her regular writing partner, Jon Raymond, Reichardt tells the story of Lizzy (Michelle Williams), a Portland-based sculptor who works for an endearingly scruffy art school and is in final preparations for an exhibit of her work. Lizzy is frustrated by her landlord-neighbor (Hong Chau, terrific as always), who’s neglecting to fix a water heater problem because she’s preoccuppied with her own looming art shows, and further tested by tense family dynamics, some of the revolving around the struggles of her brother (John Magaro) as he faces ongoing mental health issues. Despite feints otherwise, Reichardt keeps the tension of the work at a low simmer, preferring careful character study to fraught drama. Williams, a Reichardt regular, is absolutely marvelous in the lead role. She plays Lizzy with all her off-putting complications right on the surface. The character is rarely unjustified in her consternation, but Williams makes her all the real by playing scenes with a tick or two more abrasion than I suspect most other actors would. Showing Up is funny, truthful, cleverly understated, and a consistent joy to watch.

Dear White People (Justin Simien, 2014). Written and directed by Justin Simien, Dear White People depicts a fraught few weeks at fictional Winchester College, an upscale private college that seems to be at least adjacent to the ivies in prestige. As the Black student population, led mostly by Sam White (Tessa Thompson), assert their power in opposition to systemic racism on campus, the privileged white students, represented by the unctuous malevolent Kurt Fletcher, push back with their primary tool, a trained confidence that their cultural insensitivity, bullying, and abject cruelty will be met with zero consequences. The satire has teeth, even as the breadth of what Simien aims to cover, which encompasses intersectionality and host of other topics, sometimes sends the film into a dead end in the maze of its own thematic narrative. The quality of the performances also varies, though Thompson is strong, as is Tyler James Williams, playing a budding Black student journalist dragged unwillingly into the midst of the mess.

California Split (Robert Altman, 1974). Bill (George Segal) and Charlie (Elliott Gould) are two gamblers who befriend each other after sitting at different ends of the table for a poker game that descends into a scuffle. In their boyish bonding, they feed their worst habits, and soon they’re chasing after every wagering opportunity they can find, putting finances and personal well-being at risk. Director Robert Altman exults in the seediness of the film’s settings (he’s never more at home than when he’s depicting people who aren’t quite as smart as they think they, and those people are rushing up fast on the end of the runway) and employs his famed technique of letting dialogue overlap to a delightfully ludicrous degree, practically letting every person in a packed bar or casino chime in. Gould is terrific in his role, chattering exuberantly about his next scheme like a salesman who believe wholeheartedly in the product he’s peddling. If it sometimes feels like Altman is taking a little too long to get to the film’s foregone conclusion, well, that scruffy wandering is simply part of the package. Without it, there wouldn’t be room for the marvelous scene where Charlie cases up every player at a high stakes poker table to the growing amusement of the bartender in the background.