“The only thing that matters is to survive. Look around you, it’s like Custer’s last stand; kill, or be killed.”
Widows follows three women in Chicago, Veronica (Viola Davis), Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), and Alice (Elizabeth Debicki) after a police shootout following a robbery attempt leaves their husbands dead. Soon after, Veronica is approached by 18th Ward alderman candidate Jamal Manning (Bryan Tyree Henry) with the revelation that he and his money were the target of her husband Harry (Liam Neeson) and his crew, and he wants his money back or else. Veronica is forced to recruit the other widows and plot to steal $5 million from Manning’s opponent in the race, Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell) using plans left behind by Harry in order to save themselves and forge a future built on their own terms.
While the antagonist within Widows’ plot is Jamal Manning and his extortion of the film’s namesakes, metaphorically speaking, the villain in Widows is one that feels all too timely and present in our current everyday lives; men and their exploitation and discarding of the lives of women. At every turn, we are presented with examples and instances of the film’s male characters treatment of their female counterparts and their very being as currency to be leveraged, bargained with, spent, or purchased. The most obvious example of this is the relationship between Alice and her new rich developer beau David (Lukas Haas). A constant refrain from David is that “life is a transaction,” everything to be negotiated and bought, including his time spent with Alice. This attitude is perfectly indicative of how all of the men in the film view and treat the women, from Jack Mulligan to Jamal Manning to Henry. Whether it’s the direct theft and extortion or how the husbands and their actions leave their women in the lurch and on the path toward being widowed in the first place. Their disregard for the women is what the widows must combat, in addition to dealing with the grief of losing their partners. As the women fight to overcome their circumstances and their treatment as mere pawns, they come to understand that life is like the quotation that began this review. Through this, they find their strength and the ability to do what they have to do make it through. Co-writer Gillian Flynn, who also wrote the screenplay for 2014’s instant classic Gone Girl, again uses a thrilling tale of betrayal to examine what happens when women return the coldness of sexism with coldness of their own. Grief and its effect on those who find themselves caught within its grasp is the film’s other recurring theme and as the story progresses, we find that grief has played an integral role in key plot developments and relationships between central characters.
The main theme of the film feels especially topical in our current hashtag moment of renewed interest in and aspiration toward more equitable treatment for women. As women in the United States and around the world continue to strive to be able to build lives separate and apart from the machinations of patriarchal control and limitations, Widows explores just how stifling our current reality is. As the female protagonists in the film are caught in the middle of the high-stakes financial and political games played by men, shuffled back and forth between various rocks and hard places, a picture is drawn for the viewer just how much misery and bad fortune burdened upon women only got there through the placement by a man’s hand. If that is the reality, then the inner strength and fortitude displayed by these female characters in finding their own self-determination to create their own fortunes and futures must be real as well. Once Veronica, Linda, and Alice decide to do for themselves what their husbands cannot or did not do, without regard for what any other man would do to stop them, they didn’t just play with the hands which they were dealt, they switched the cards. Perhaps a lesson there not just for women, but for all of us.
Director and co-writer Steve McQueen crafts a heist film that is not just suspenseful in watching the planned robbery unfold, but also providing a bit of social commentary in its theme as outlined above, along with some great camera shots and nods to Chicago culture. The inclusion of aldermen and the highlighting of their power in Chicago politics makes the film stand out immediately. The acknowledgement of the role of alderman is a welcomed detail, as less thorough filmmakers may have more lazily jumped straight to making Jack Mulligan an aspiring mayoral candidate instead. McQueen also offers many great shots in Widows, the film sporting an overall very cinematic feel while also remaining true to its Chicago backdrop with shots of the L and various landmarks. I particularly enjoyed a technique he and director of photography Sean Bobbit utilized where Veronica and Alice stared out into the night cityscape with only their reflections visible in the window. This style of shot was used to convey the sadness and loneliness felt by the characters at different points following the deaths of their husbands. McQueen and Bobbit also use visual storytelling to display the thin line between poverty and wealth in Chicago with a one take camera shot of Jack Mulligan’s detailed SUV riding down the street as the surroundings switch from dilapidated buildings to mansions in the blink of an eye. This documenting of the Chicago that Richard J. Daley built is so subtly yet speaks loudly to the intentional inequities baked into the Windy City.
Although Widows boasts an impressive, huge ensemble, Viola Davis serves as the film’s lead and she does not disappoint. It is the opinion of this writer that Davis is one of the two best working actresses today (the other being Natalie Portman) and her performance here displays why she deserves to continue holding that honor. Davis portrays Veronica as a grieving widow, struggling to make sense of her husband’s death while also being thrust into a world she doesn’t fully understand. The gruff, acidic exterior Veronica presents in public while longing and breaking in private is exactly what you’d imagine a person in situation would appear to be. Davis switches effortlessly between the two demeanors, and comes across believable in both. Although she has plenty of help from her fellow actors, Davis is asked to do a lot to power the film and she does so flawlessly. Watching Daniel Kaluuya act in Widows is like watching fireflies drift in a summer’s evening sky. He only has a small supporting role in the film so he appears onscreen only in brief flashes, like the firefly’s neon luminescence. And like the firefly, you find yourself staring at him whenever he appears so as to catch as many glimpses of those flashes as you can. Kaluuya’s Jatemme Manning is electric onscreen bringing an air of intense unpredictability and stealing every scene he is in. Elizabeth Debicki turns in a notable performance as Alice, a young, abused woman accustomed to depending on men for her most of her life now forced to look inward for survival. Her story arc best encapsulates what the film is trying to say in its commentary on women in society as she becomes stronger and more self assured as the plot develops and she experiences the independence that her husband’s sudden death has forced her into. Debicki brings the character along this journey wonderfully. Bryan Tyree Henry
