‎Wanda (1970) directed by Barbara Loden • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

Wanda

1970 Directed by Barbara Loden

Wanda, after a string of abusive relationships, abandons her family and seeks solace in the company of a petty criminal.

Barbara Loden Dorothy Shupenes Peter Shupenes Jerome Thier Michael Higgins Marian Thier Valerie Mamches Nicholas T. Proferes

102 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Sean Baker 7

Saw this years ago so revisiting this film now that it has been restored was like watching the film for the first time. Restoration is fantastic.

Great building of tension and always engaging. Love the 16mm aesthetic and Barbara Loden says so much with so little words in her textured performance.

So sad that Loden didn't direct another feature.
Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★★

There are so many oeuvre's of canonical filmmakers that could be disposed of completely if it meant at least one more film from this phenomenally gifted filmmaker. I can think of no film which has such a remarkable sense of place and world-building, yet achieves a level of subjective experience that is in my opinion unparalleled in cinema. If this was the one and only movie I had made, I would die happily. Barbara Loden was supernaturally talented. She is truly one of the greatest.
Review by josh lewis ★★★★★ 1

the crushing, mundane, aimless despair of every day reality and our understandable but failed attempts to retreat into fantasy. "if you don't have anything then you're nothing. you may as well be dead. you're not even a citizen of the united states."
Review by Willow Maclay ★★★★½ 2

We never grew up around the ocean, but that was never a problem for us, because the Appalachia mountains curve. You never had to imagine what waves cresting felt or looked like, because we had the hills and mountains rise and fall under our feet. Hiking was like walking on water, but you’d never say such things out loud, because your elders would whoop you with a switch and say you shouldn’t be blasphemous, but I never felt like it was taking it out on God to say he gave us good land. Growing up in the South, specifically Appalachia meant you inhaled a lot of things secondhand, but I guess that’s the case wherever you grow up. Smart folks…
Review by Kurdt ★★★★ 10

Achingly depressing. Poor Wanda has been beaten into the earth by life, emotionally abused to the point where her self-esteem is non-existent and she’s destined to be framed in isolated wide shots, strolling aimlessly towards the forever grey horizon. The first half hour is just wonderful in all the worst ways; I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so much instant pity for a character. Wanda’s downbeat life consists of giving up/fucking up everything she loves, though maybe she can’t even feel love anymore. She happily gives her kids away to her ex-husband claiming they’ll be better off with him. There’s a great mini scene where she’s alone in the cinema watching a film, and it reminded me of Karina in…
Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★★

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

It's amazing where this film ends up going, to end in a brothel and to make a cognent statement about society, about the world, whatever you want to call it, and yet begin with such specificity of time and place - Wanda begins almost completely circumstantial, and seems that way for most of its run time until its very final moments. No cinephilia here, no references, no (obvious) influences, - some interesting and unusual faces who are all outsiders - even the bank robber. Wanda is the rare film that feels totally lived-in, experiential, yet speaks about the nature of societies conditions - specifically to a woman from these circumstances, yet by it's end it's made clear that it was…

Recent reviews

Review by rodrigo

❝I'm nothing,
I'll always be nothing.
I can't even wish to be something.
Aside from that, I've got all the world's dreams inside me.❞
- Álvaro de Campos
Review by MTWDCinema ★★★★★

Wanda is not an easy movie to find, but if you can find it, you’d be stupid to not watch it. It’s simply amazing.
Review by Santiago Morales ★★★★★

wow
Review by HillFolk ★★★★½

Too relatable
Review by tannerevans ★★ 1

Bonnie and Clyde’s realist (aka boring and misogynistic) cousin
Review by Kutulhu ★★★★

I have the same slacks rule for my cat.
Review by John Ananias ★★½

I hope to give this another shot sometime, but what held this back for me is that I never really felt like I knew Wanda. I think for this film to really work, you need to buy her desperation, to understand on some level why she stays with "Mr. Dennis" despite his abuse and criminality. The pieces are pretty much there (she agrees to a divorce and leaves her children, her money's stolen, etc.), but everything is played/acted at a low enough register that her her struggle, her desperation, wasn't palpable to me. When I watched the bonus features included on the Criterion Channel, and heard Barbara Loden talk about the way Wanda wanders through her life and needs someone…
Review by darcy ★★★★½

I Lived It: Wanda Reminded Me to Refill My Antidepressants
Review by Ted Mills ★★★★

When Barbara Loden's name was invoked in the jokey Aubrey Plaza-led skit that opened the 2019 Indie Spirit Awards, I had to remind myself who she was. And then as if Criterion read my mind, they made this the movie of the week.

Coal country in the 1970s: grimy, overwhelming, dilapidated. And into this Loden casts herself as an alt-timeline version of a Loden who never escaped to NYC at 17. A brutal odyssey as she sets off out of a 2-child marriage into who knows what. Loden neither punishes her character nor rewards her. She just gives Wanda space in which to exist, which is radical in itself. Michael Higgins is great as a two-bit crook who we realize is still trying to make his dad respect him even as he hurtles towards a bank robbery that has little chance of success.

Such an odd viewing experience, it feels unique despite its neo-realist tendencies.