Dear Wendy

Dick is a shy directionless boy growing up in a timeless American backwater town. Like his father he is expected to work down the mines but Dick has other ideas. He gets a job in a local shop and when one day he buys what he thinks is a toy gun his life takes a turn.

The ‘Dear Wendy’, of the film title, is how Dick begins a letter composed to his beloved gun of that same name. He is a ‘Dandy’, the leader of a gang of misfits, bought together by their shared shyness which is eased when they start to idolise handguns. Each ‘Dandy’ has a weapon which they name, their gun is their ‘partner’. The sworn pacifists develop confidence with the knowledge that they go about their daily lives with guns concealed on themselves.

Susan is the bashful, gawky girl who works in her mums junk store. Huey is the town cripple, his brother Freddie is sick of being beaten at school. Stevie works in the store with Dick – they are The Dandies, studying their passion at night, practicing their shooting and dressing like romantic highway men and women.

Then there is Sebastian who has killed a man, he is on parole and charged to Dicks care by local copper (Bill Pullman). Dick becomes jealous of Sebastian’s instant rapport with Wendy – Wendy is his partner! Much like Susan, Wendy seems to crave action not just practice and words.

This is a very unusual film, and it is hard to get your head around the personification of their weapons. As things start to fall apart at the end of the film and the pacifists turn their bullets on real people it is hard to relate to what they must be feeling. We know they love their guns, as it turns out they love them more than life itself.

For three quarters of the film the plot ambles along and we become intrigued by these misfits. And then something happens, a tragically comic moment and from then on the tone changes and madness prevails.

Their fascination with guns, initially a positive thing in their lives, ends badly as the beautiful finely crafted partners turn into grotesque weapons of murder. Jamie Bell as Dick gives a good performance with a convincing American accent and Dear Wendy is thought provoking and very original. It has something to say about hand-gun crime, youth violence and power within a community, however it is a struggle to understand exactly what the director and screenwriter are trying to say other than 'guns are bad mmmkay'.

Jamie O'Connell