Unfortunately, learning that I should have read the reviews first is the most positive thing I have to say about this film. The cast attracted me; the story lost me. Take away: Montana is cold and boring.

Independant women like this are a dime a dozen in Canada, especially in the french community. Dependant women are rare! Check french canadian films. So this film was quickly boring after the first segment with Laura Dern. I gave it one more star because the acting was quality.

Carving out a sublimely low-key triptych out of Maile Meloy's stories onto the screen, Kelly Reichardt's lucidly orchestrated CERTAIN WOMEN whisks her audience to a small-town Montana, and in each part of the triptych, a woman finds herself flummoxed by a common-or-garden quagmire about human interaction (by turns, professionally, domestically and emotionally) which soberly flouts any sensationalism through Reichardt's brilliant execution. Laura Wells (a pensive and discomfited Dern), a middle-aged lawyer, is frustrated by the persistent visits of her client William Fuller (Harris, strives for an ostensibly expansive persona but strikingly betrays his disquiet bobbing right underneath the surface), who insists on suing his company for the work-place injury inflicted on him, even after Laura repeatedly explicates to him that it is legally nugatory reckoning with his circumstance, still he won't take her advise seriously, not until he implicates her into a late-night hostage foolery, the episode finds an almost anticlimactic pay-off. The heroine in the second segment is Gina (Williams, exquisitely smoldering in her understated flair), who is married to Ryan Lewis (Le Gros), and they have a teenage daughter Guthrie (Rodier), their marital rift starts to aggravate when they visit an elderly friend Albert (Auberjonois) to buy a heap of sandstone lined up haphazardly in front of the latter's house, which they can use to build their own abode. If Laura's plight is occasioned by exterior intrusion and social prejudice (people tend to believe an authoritative male figure than a female one), Gina's story tackles a more internal frustration within a nuclear family, stranded inside a loveless marriage (right out of the box, Reichardt notifies us Ryan is Laura's part-time lover), Gina seems to have an upper hand over a biddable Ryan and in negotiating with Albert for their house's sake, but Reichardt's observant camera brings home to audience that she is also invidiously victimized or undermined by the male parties here, not to mention being given the short shrift from the pubescent Guthrie. A scathing but tonally placid critique about motherhood, wifehood and being a strong woman allocates the second chapter ample elbow room (for both Gina and spectators) to breathe and introspect.Yet, a crescendo is crystallized in the third story, about a young girl, simply credited as the Rancher (Gladstone), whose Indian descent is only hinted, takes a horse-tending job on her ownsome, seeks any ghost of human contact out of her monotonous solitude, she stumbles on a night class of school law taught by a young lawyer Beth Travis (Stewart), who has to inure a four-hour drive (one way) for this biweekly endeavor. An unilateral attraction germinates in hugger-mugger, so how far does one can go to venture a possible reciprocation? Most of the time, the answer is always there, clear as day, but no one can blame you for trying, the newcomer Gladstone kills it in her transcendent reaction shots in response of a bewildering nonevent, brimful of subtlety and unfeigned undertow of heart-breaking, meanwhile Stewart brings about a significant mien of jaded weariness and guarded spontaneity as a wrong-footed, short-changed bottom feeder. Opting for a less elaborately interwoven structure, Reichardt allows each story flourish on its own terms without much fragmentation, and only tentatively suggests the characters' tie-ins (Laura and Gina is obliquely linked by Ryan, the Rancher and Laura has a fleeting encounter in her office, that is all), and most extraordinarily furnishes these heartfelt female-centered stories with an incisive contemporary spin meanwhile upholds her aesthetic integrity to the hilt, CERTAIN WOMEN is a microcosmic film-making in its most auteurist stature.

In rural / small-town Montana, three stories interact: a lawyer (Laura Dern) seems unable to set boundaries with an ex-client (Jared Harris) who is unhinged and deranged; a rather uptight woman (Michelle Williams) tries to find motivation in building a new home even though her husband and teenage daughter are growing more and more distant from her; a young rancher (Lily Gladstone) is infatuated with a recent law graduate (Kristen Stewart) who arrives in her town twice a week to teach an educational law night class."Certain Women" is written and directed by Kelly Reichardt and based on short stories by Maile Meloy. Like other Reichardt films (her best is "Meek's Cutoff" (2010)), this one tells so much in the unspoken word - where a silent reply says so much more than a bluntly worded statement. She is blessed with a superb cast who can make the viewer feel so much with a camera lingering on their faces.It's tempting to think "nothing is happening" at the beginning of each segment. But once viewers catch on to Reinhardt's unique style, they can see that a lot is actually happening. The Gladstone/Stewart story stands out for various reasons and not just the great acting (Gladstone rightly won many awards for her performance). It provides a great re-telling of the tragic story of someone having a crush on another who aspires to be (or already is) in a higher class in the socioeconomic hierarchy.Their story, like the others, have a theme of loneliness and isolation even for those who are surrounded by people. This film has a special and unique charm that is quite rewarding.