Wanda movie storyline. In grim, rust-belt Pennsylvania, Wanda is down and out. She works sporadically, has abandoned her husband and children, sleeps on her sister’s couch, drinks and smokes too much, and goes home with men just to have a roof over her head. One night she walks into a bar after closing and finds a nervous Mr. Dennis pacing. She takes up with him, and he proves to be a criminal. They go on the road, visit his father, and he plans a robbery. He’s rude and demanding; Wanda accepts his abuse docilely. What future does she have?
Wanda is a 1970 American independent drama film written and directed by Barbara Loden, who also stars in the title role. Set in the anthracite coal region of eastern Pennsylvania, the film focuses on an apathetic woman with limited options who inadvertently goes on the run with a bank robber.
Inspired by her own past feelings of aimlessness, as well as a newspaper article detailing a woman’s participation in a bank robbery, Loden wrote the screenplay for Wanda before securing financing through Harry Shuster, a Los Angeles-based producer. The film was shot on location with a small crew of around seven people, primarily in eastern Pennsylvania and Connecticut, and much of the dialog and filming was improvised, with Loden only loosely referring to the screenplay.
Wanda was chosen for the 31st Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Pasinetti Award for Best Foreign Film. A restored version of the film was screened out of competition at the 67th Venice International Film Festival in 2010. In 2017, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
Writer-director-actor Barbara Loden’s sole feature film centers around a woman who’s just left her husband and lost her factory job. She then passively teams up with a small-time crook, flitting from barstool to backseat with the resignation of a prisoner who no longer dreams of escape.
It’s a portrait of a broken spirit that was bleak even by the era’s standards. (Loden’s screenplay attracted little interest, which is why she ended up directing it herself; it’s a movie about someone paralyzed by society’s expectations, made by someone paralyzed by society’s expectations.)
Yet it’s since been recognized as a compassionate, highly personal landmark of American independent cinema, and an object of fascination for writers and filmmakers intrigued by Loden’s short life and extraordinary sense of humanity.
Wanda (1970)
Directed by: Barbara Loden
Starring: Barbara Loden, Michael Higgins, Frank Jourdano, Valerie Manches, Dorothy Shupenes, Peter Shupenes, Jerome Thier, Marian Thier, Anthony Rotell, M. L. Kennedy
Screenplay by: Barbara Loden
Cinematography by: Nicholas Proferes
Film Editing by: Nicholas Proferes
Music by: Dave Mullaney
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Bardene International Films
Release Date: September 1, 1970 (Venice), February 28, 1971 (United States)
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