Review: Arty movie ‘Showing Up’ about artists fails to spark

Michelle Williams plays a sculptor whose hot water heater has irritatingly busted in the languid “Showing Up.” That’s about it, plot-wise. Her Lizzy is desperate to get to working on her rustic ceramic figurines, but real life nuisances intrude, like her job, even though it’s a cushy desk spot at an art institute and her mom is the boss. Judd Hirsch continues his resurgence — he was nominated for an Oscar opposite Williams in “The Fabelmans” — in another art lover role. “Showing Up” may be a rallying cry to let artists just be artists — Reichardt is famously an artist in residence at Bard College, in large part to have health insurance — but she may have miscalculated how much compassion is generated by a supposed lover of beauty who is as cold and off-putting as her figurines.