Bonnie is nuffin compared to Wanda.

Wanda's self-worth has been battered down to nothingness. The only thing that seems to drive her is a need to be wanted, no matter how poorly she gets treated. Certainly she is a tragic character and the men in her life are no saints. But much of her trouble seems to be self-inflicted by careless decisions. Loden doesn't make it easy for us to decide how to judge her, and in a way takes the judgment out of the equation. The more I ponder this bleak film, the more intriguing I find it.

There's much to like about Barbara Loden's lone film --it's a true indie and a scrupulously naturalistic realization that withholds judgment on its characters. True, it has some of the pitfalls of this type of low-budget film --the 16mm blow-up makes it look like crap, and the acting is often so poor it takes you out of the realism the film tries so hard to convey. Most detrimental to my appreciation of the movie is just that I couldn't find much reason to care about Wanda.

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