Certain Women

The story of three barely connected women inhabiting small-town Livingston, Montana: a lawyer (Laura Dern) and her relationship with an unhinging client (Jared Harris); a sullen woman (Michelle Woman) on an errand in the country which reveals her troubled marriage; a young lawyer (Kristen Stewart) making a slight friendship with a farmhand (Lily Gladstone) at a night class she's teaching. Kelly Reichardt's Certain Women, based on the writings of Maile Meloy, is essentially three self-contained shorts, touching, melancholic, and minutely observed and made with great actresses and beautiful Western landscape photography. *** 1/2 out of ****