Wanda

1970 Directed by Barbara Loden

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

Barbara Loden Michael Higgins Dorothy Shupenes Peter Shupenes Jerome Thier Marian Thier Valerie Mamches Anthony Rotell M.L. Kennedy Gerald Grippo Milton Gittleman Lila Gittleman Arnold Kanig Joe Dennis Charles Dosinan Jack Ford Rozamond Peck Linda Clark Bill Longworth Frank Jourdano Pete Richman Ed Somavitch

103 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by matt lynch ★★★½ 2

Interesting prequel, you can see why she decided to become a fish.
Review by Adam Friedland 10

Thought this movie would be on some female shit, but there’s a lot of stuff for the fellas too
Review by Sean Baker 8

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 theriverjordan ★★★★ 23

Barbara Loden’s “Wanda” looks, sounds, and feels like a film pieced together from the last scraps of nothing.
The first feature-length movie to be written, directed, and starred in by a woman, “Wanda” is a work that struggles with whether or not it should exist. But ultimately - it, and Loden, decide that the work is nothing less than necessary.
“Wanda” was Loden’s only directorial outing before her young death from breast cancer. The story of a housewife who wanders without place or purpose other than drifting being all she can do, “Wanda” emphasises the unknowability of women’s own souls, desires, and capabilities.
Similar to Agnès Varda’s “Vagabond,” which arrived a decade and a half after “Wanda,” Loden allows little…
Review by brat pitt ★★★★ 6

there’s an acrid authenticity to the character of Wanda: at once submissive, passive, and tenacious — a flickering blue flame, a pilot light ready and aching to burn it all down.
as the first narrative feature ever to be written, directed by and starring the same woman (barbara loden), Wanda is undeniably herstoric, without even really trying to be, which is maybe why it succeeds. i know i’ve talked about this before and often, but contemporary studio feminism is so rooted in women being portrayed as physically strong, perfect angels devoid of fatal flaws. Wanda opens with her being late to her own divorce court hearing and eagerly pawning her kids off on her ex-husband. yee-haw! the new hollywood movement…
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 Neil Bahadur ★★★★★ 1

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 ethan 3

wheres vision???????????? ????????
Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½ 3

85
A total unified synthesis between actor and performance. Barbara Loden *is* Wanda, rumbling through a observational, harsh reality of structures and concepts destined to ruin lives of those at the bottom of the well. A landmark achievement that flies by like a flash of memory.
"That's the score."
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…
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 Hari Nef 4

1. we love and stan
2. i’m not using the “like” heart thing feature anymore when i add films it’s too stressful

k ily bye

Recent reviews

Review by marihmmm ★★★★½

It's got all that stuff i like
Review by OscarPS ★★★★½

Necesito un abrazo
Review by brownsvillegirl ★★★★½

been looking for this for a while. It was in Magdalen College Lib and very helpful. Left it at lodge for me to collect.
Strange movie. Affectless characters. No non-diegetic sound track. Periods of silence. Very little dialogue. A directionless woman is buffeted and abused by the men who she meets, until the end when she stumbles in to a group drinking in a pub in a companionable way.
Josh Larsen: Influenced by Bonnie and Clyde, certainly, but more interestingly a likely influence on Malick's Badlands, Cassavetes' A Woman Under the Influence, and Reichardt's River of Grass.
Worth reading full Larsen review
Review by pinkmilkk ★★

kadının aptallığı aklımı aldı. kardeşim gidin düzgün bi işe girin çalışın ayaklarınızın üstünde durun ya aaa
Review by pwatersnh ★★★★½

Scavenger Hunt Challenge #72 | March 2021 (5/31)
Prompt 8: Watch a feature-length movie directed by a woman
Sometimes you discover a movie in weirdly specific ways; one of the characters in Barry Jenkins' Medicine for Melancholy makes t-shirts with names of female filmmakers, one of which said 'Loden' on it. I'd never heard of this Barbara Loden before so I checked out this Criterion Collection-approved movie of hers - the only feature film she made - and I was blown away!
Shot on a super low budget, it follows a woman who's just sort of apathetically going with the flow of life. When her husband files for divorce, taking custody of the kids, she shows up late to court…
Review by theriverjordan ★★★★ 23

Barbara Loden’s “Wanda” looks, sounds, and feels like a film pieced together from the last scraps of nothing.
The first feature-length movie to be written, directed, and starred in by a woman, “Wanda” is a work that struggles with whether or not it should exist. But ultimately - it, and Loden, decide that the work is nothing less than necessary.
“Wanda” was Loden’s only directorial outing before her young death from breast cancer. The story of a housewife who wanders without place or purpose other than drifting being all she can do, “Wanda” emphasises the unknowability of women’s own souls, desires, and capabilities.
Similar to Agnès Varda’s “Vagabond,” which arrived a decade and a half after “Wanda,” Loden allows little…
Review by Demario ★★★★½

Worthy of 41/2.
Review by dana ★★★★

this film is dog day afternoon meets badlands,, pair it with the book suite for barbara loden by nathalie léger and thank me later <33 🥰
Review by Georgie 🎈 ★★★★

I definitely don’t think Mr. Dennis counts as a “petty” criminal in any way.
Obsessed with all of the interior car camerawork.

#ponytailgoals
Review by DrewWatches ★★★★

Wanda, a small speck amidst an inhospitable industrial landscape. The coal is running out, the sounds of screaming babies and mechanical rumbling are deafening, and the planes circle high above - perennially out of reach. The American Myth (a la Bonnie and Clyde) completely drained of its romance.
Review by Ken 🎥🍿 ★★★★½

"Stunningly Free and Raw"

The first and only feature film from Barbara Loden, Wanda is a intimate and raw view and depictions of womenhood and the search for life through a refreshingly unique women gaze and through the 1970s radical change in filmmaking. The film feels fearless and feels free to do whatever it wants too and although its pacing certainly suffers from it, the film remains captivating and important.

The film follows of course Wanda, a recently divorced mother who abandons her family in the search for freedom and meaning in her life and her aimless journey ultimately brings her to a company a petty criminal as she numbingly and quietly witness his downfall unfolding.
Directed, starring and written…
Review by Soph ★★★★★

I am convinced I am inextricably connected to Barbara Loden since we are both from Asheville; sister from another mister !!!