Widows - Review Thread

Unless they watch the movie.

How the hell did you see this in March?

Widows(10/20/2018)

Going “three for three” as a filmmaker, meaning the making of three straight films that are considered to be really important works as a filmmaker, is never easy. Debut films are often too small to reach a filmmaker’s full potential, and when filmmakers do manage to hit the ground running they’ll often hit a sophomore slump, and when they do manage to make two straight triumphs they’ll all too often stumble on the third. One of the few filmmakers who have managed to avoid those pitfalls recently has been the English filmmaker Steve McQueen (not to be confused with the actor). McQueen’s debut film, the IRA prison movie Hunger, was an amazing debut that instantly established him as a major talent. It didn’t get the degree of attention it deserved upon release but people in the know caught onto it quickly and it also made something of a star out of Michael Fassbender. His collaboration with Fassbender would continue with his American debut, Shame, a searing drama about sex addiction that has become a bit divisive with some critics but which was undoubtedly very well made. His profile then took a giant leap with his next film, the Academy Award winning 12 Years a Slave. The importance of that movie largely speaks for itself but a movie like that isn’t always the easiest act to follow and in the five years since its release many have wondered what he’s been up to. As it turns out his new plan was to go in a different direction for his fourth film and make a film that has social relevance but a lighter approach called Widows.

The film is set in Chicago and focuses on a woman named Veronica Rawlins (Viola Davis), whose husband Harry Rawlins (Liam Neeson) has just been killed in a botched robbery attempt. Veronica had long looked the other way while her husband acquired wealth for decades through large scale heists and built a life of relative luxury for her. Shortly after Harry’s death Veronica is visited by a man named Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry) who’s currently running to be an alderman in Ward 18 against a guy named Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell), the son of an old school and corrupt Chicago politician named Tom Mulligan (Robert Duvall). Unfortunately for Veronica this aspiring politician is living a double life as the leader of a violent street gang and apparently he’s the one who Harry was robbing when he was killed in a fiery explosion destroying the loot and he’s demanding that she repay him one way or another. Fortunately for her she does have access to Harry’s notebook, which has his plans for one final score written in it. Not trusting any of Chicago’s other career criminals she decides to instead contact Linda Perelli (Michelle Rodriguez) and Alice Gunnar (Elizabeth Debicki), the widows of two of the other people who died along with Harry to enlist them to do this final heist along with her.

Clearly this movie is operating off of a bit of a high concept and from the basic description of the film I had expected these widows’ motives to be a bit more vengeful but as it turns out all three of the main widows had rather complicated relationships to their respective husbands. In the case of the Elizabeth Debicki character her husband is quickly established to have been physically abusive, in the case of Michelle Rodriguezs character her husband was a bit of a deadbeat who gambled away a lot of the couple’s money, and over the course of several flashbacks we learn that the Viola Davis character’s husband had his dark side as well. Instead the movie focuses on these women finding their own independence in their new lives, especially the Debicki character who had once been something of a doormat but who is now kind of taking her first steps onto the dry land in standing up for herself. The Michelle Rodriguez character’s arc is a little less clear, but the fact that she’s the only of the three with children does give her the extra dimention of having to find babysitters while she shows up to heist meetings is interesting. Of course the Davis character’s plan to have these widows take part in this heist is a bit odd. Neither she nor her accomplices are hardened criminals with any real experience in the caper business, but the movie doesn’t really emphasize or make a lot of comedy out of the fact that these are supposed to essentially be amateurs playing with guns. One could easily see the movie turning into something along the lines of The Lavender Hill Mob, but it generally plays things a bit straighter than that.

The parallel story to all of this looks at the alderman race, which proves to be an incredibly cynical look at local politics. Brian Tyree Henry’s character is of course a cold blooded killer, we’re given no particular reason to think he knows how to run the office, and he explicitly says at the beginning of the movie that he wants this job for corrupt and self-serving reasons. Sounds bad, but we’re given plenty of reasons to be just as suspicious of Colin Farrell’s character, who appears to largely have contempt for the people of his now largely lower class and African American ward despite occasional photo ops to suggest the contrary and we hear that he may have made some very shady deals on a transportation committee he was on previously. On top of that this character largely seems to have entered politics because he was the son of the ward’s previous alderman, a mean old bastard almost certainly inspired by Joe Kennedy who openly uses racial slurs behind closed doors and seems to largely view politics as a business opportunity. When not on the campaign trail neither of these candidates show the slightest interest in helping anyone but themselves, and our opinion of both of them basically just goes downhill as the movie continues. Pretty bleak. I’m not entirely sure that this “House of Cards” level of cynicism about politics is entirely healthy, it’s the kind of thing that makes people want to “drain the swamp” so-to-speak.

Granted this is Chicago, and that’s not exactly a city that’s known for earnest leadership but I’m pretty sure that the real corruption there is a bit more mundane than what we see here and I don’t get the impression that this movie has a David Simon level of insight into this kind of local politics. Instead this movie seems to be operating on more on the logic of pulp when it comes to most of these machinations. It works to tie the plot together but I’m not sure it has anything overly insightful to say about urban politics. I also wasn’t a big fan of the way the film invoked some fairly heavy #BlackLivesMatter imagery just to have it largely serve as a sort of pop psychology motivation for a character later on. Ultimately I think this is a movie that’s probably best enjoyed if you’re not taking it too seriously. I’m not sure that the award season hype of a November release is going to help it as it might lead people expecting a little more out of it than what it aims for. Looked at more as Hollywood potboiler though and it certainly delivers and enjoyable yarn that’s worth your time.

***1/2 out of Five