Jamie Bell, Bill Pullman, Michael Angarano

When a young loner named Dick discovers a handgun, he finds himself strangely drawn to it despite his pacifist views. Soon he forms a secret club with other misfits in his town who collect and revere ...( read more  read more... )antique guns and call themselves the Dandies. But despite their firm belief in the most important Dandy rule of all - "never draw your weapons" - they eventually discover that some rules are meant to be broken.

Flixster Users

54% liked it

15,432 ratings

Critics

37% liked it

59 critics

Unrated, 105 min.

Directed by: Thomas Vinterberg

Release Date: September 23, 2005

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DVD Release Date: March 21, 2006

Stats: 510 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (510)


  • September 14, 2009
    This is not the film I was expecting from Vinterberg and Von Trier but it is as good as I'd hoped! It's visually stunning in places and very cool. Some of the cast let it down but on the whole this is a great film!
  • July 22, 2009
    Apart from a few moments of jarring reality - this whole film seems like one of the brief dream like sequences from some of Lars Von Trier's earlier films. The story is grounded in the mundanity of modern youth, but uses a contrived Western style backdrop to extract it's rites of...( read more) passage plot and at times elements of shocking brutality are numbed by the histrionics employed in delivering them. The use of sets and choice to place the story in an old mining community, the Zombies heavy soundtrack and the use of solely modern-looking cars takes the film away from reality slightly placing it in a timeless environment by nature of conflicting periods. Centrally the characters dress and sense of honour as well as there insistence on using old fashioned guns is an interesting study in today's youths obsession with "retro" and also the contradiction of guns and pacifism is reminiscent of modern teenagers left wing crusades conflicting with their obsessive consumerism.

    The supporting performances are solid, if a little too mannered, but Jamie Bell's protagonist is difficult to place - quite spiteful and too disaffected to consider the fatal consequences of his actions.

    All in all this is an enjoyable film, with a none to0 subtle nor fresh, but always relevant message at the end that lacks the cold, bleak reality of some of Von Trier's and Vinterberg's earlier work. Still as a starting point for someone looking to get into the work of the aforementioned talents, this is a more accessible and light piece that won't leave you breath taken or thinking to much, but that's definitely worth a relaxed perusal.
  • April 27, 2009
    One half is a great and intelligent film. It deals with a pacifist gun club, without becoming wacky or bonkers. It plays it straight but the satire is still obvious without being forced upon it's audience. Bell is a superb actor, and the chemistry between him and his gun is surpr...( read more)isingly real. It's a relationship you can feel for and to see Bell get jealous when somebody else fires it, without his performance becoming parody, is truly masterful. A good young supporting cast and a soundtrack by one of my favorite bands ever, The Zombies, are also superb. Each song is carefully selected and used to great advantage. The last third it all goes tits up. A fairly believable commentary on the love affair America has with guns, turns into exactly what it managed to avoid being. It becomes a shoot-out galore and suddenly things stop making sense. Pullman is relegated from a considerate and kind police sheriff, to a clichéd Western villain. It's a real shame that the film didn't know how to end.
  • May 19, 2008
    nice lil indie flick, its teen angst meets western
  • March 31, 2008
    Ignorant, and dumb.
  • September 14, 2009
    This movie is proof you can't just take a stance on something and throw it together to make a movie, no matter how much you want to write it off as disturbed character piece.

    This movie was sloppy at times and silly at others, while it slowly went downhill at the mid-part, any...( read more) hope of it recovering to become a decent movie is lost at the transition to Act 3 when in one scene it starts to become laughable.

    You can't just make a movie and say you are making a statement, no matter how much you believe in it yourself or how powerful you want it to be. There still has to be some rhyme or reason holding it together, and this movie gets to be just ridiculous.

    It has a great cast and the acting is solid. Jamie Bell is great, Pullman and Angarano are under used. I really can't say anything positive about it other than that though, and the acting is the reason I'm giving it 3 stars rather than 2 or 2.5.
  • March 4, 2009
    A lot of hate for this movie but I thought it was so original and interesting.
  • December 10, 2008
    no thanks not my kinda thing
  • December 9, 2008
    this movie looks ok. but jamie is in it. so yeah.
  • November 16, 2008
    Dear Wendy is a very original movie, with a great script. The characters are weird, but i love that in a movie. The final scene was amazing, one of the best shooting scene ever. Jamie Bell is a good actor (and isn't only because I'm a fan, but he is more than Billy Elliot, he is ...( read more)great here too), he is really good as Wendy's first love, 7.5/10.-

Critic Reviews


September 24, 2005
Ty Burr, Boston Globe

Dear Wendy is loaded with ideas, some half-baked, some dead-on, some just stupid, and Vinterberg throws them at the screen willy-nilly. full review

September 22, 2005
A.O. Scott, The New York Times

Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier take another step toward intellectual bankruptcy with a pretentious film about a group of pacifists obsessed with handguns.

September 22, 2005
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

A tedious exercise in style, intended as a meditation on guns and violence in America but more of a meditation on itself, the kind of meditation that invites the mind to stray. full review

September 18, 2005
Nick Schager, Lessons of Darkness

A daft portrait of the U.S. (and its racism and gun-worship) that's wide of the mark. full review

View more Dear Wendy reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

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Dear Wendy Trivia


  • which actor appears in billy elliot, dear wendy and Nicholas Nickleby?  Answer »
  • In the movie "Dear Wendy", 'Wendy' was:  Answer »
  • whats the name of the limp guys gun from the movie "Dear Wendy"  Answer »
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