Review: Widows

Leave it to Steve McQueen, the director of such weighty fare as Hunger, Shame and the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave, to take a genre film and imbue it with themes of class privilege, racism, and female empowerment. Widows, adapted by Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn from the novel by Lynda La Plante, is Ocean's Eight but with depth and characterisation whilst also being a cracking heist film.

Set in Chicago, the film begins with Veronica and Harry (Viola Davis and Liam Neeson) engaged in a deeply passionate and erotic kiss. Their marital bliss is intercut with scenes from other marriages. There's Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), a mother of two opening her own store, dealing with her macho husband Carlos (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo); Amanda (Carrie Coon), making breakfast and tending to her newborn as her husband hurries out the door; beautiful blonde Alice (Elizabeth Debicki), sporting a bruised eye obviously bestowed upon her by her abusive husband, Florek (Jon Bernthal). Interspersed through all this are scenes from a heist gone bad as a getaway van containing all the husbands are chased, then fired upon by the police, resulting in the van exploding in flames.

It's a dynamite opening sequence, tremendously crafted by McQueen's longtime editor Joe Walker and one that concisely defines the characters and sets up the narrative. The women are suddenly widows, but there problems have only begun. Harry, it seems, has stolen from the wrong man, Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), a local criminal who wants his $2 million back. Jamal is currently running a campaign to become the first African-American 18th ward alderman - he wants to be in a position where people come after him with cameras and microphones instead of guns - and he needs that money to ward off his opponent, Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell), whose father (Robert Duvall) is determined to maintain the family's 60-year hold on that seat. Visiting the grieving Veronica at her luxurious penthouse apartment, Jamal tells her to pay off her husband's death in a month...or else.

Veronica, having discovered plans for a $5 million robbery in Harry's notebook, seeks out the other widows to carry off the heist. They can pay Jamal his $2 million and split the rest amongst themselves. Amanda passes - she has a newborn to care for, after all - and, though Linda and Alice are reluctant, they're also in dire financial straits, the former having discovered that Carlos was gambling away the rent money for her store and the latter now working as a high-class escort at the urging of her callous and abusive mother (Jacki Weaver). They could get themselves killed trying to pull this off, but what other choice do they have?

In many ways, Widows is the inverse of Ocean's Eight. The women are not pulling off a heist to prove they can do it as well as the men can, they are doing it as a means of survival. Where the women of Ocean's Eight were barely fleshed out and beholden to their male predecessors (Sandra Bullock is the George Clooney, Cate Blanchett is the Brad Pitt) and to the heist narrative, the women of Widows are very much doing it for themselves, to obtain the freedom of financial independence, and the narrative is beholden to them, not the other way around. This care of characterisation and motivation fully immerses viewers in the women's plight and ensures emotional investment. The actresses are all superb, with Davis at her most regal and commanding, and Debicki especially noteworthy as a woman finally gaining the strength and agency to extricate herself from years of abuse. Daniel Kaluuya also deserves mention for his exceedingly chilling turn as Jamal's sociopathic brother.

McQueen finds new ways to elevate what is essentially a genre film, whether shooting the opening getaway from the vantage point of the back of the van with its doors open or the remarkable single take during which Mulligan is driven from one precinct to another, a scene that not only provides insight to Mulligan himself but to the economic differences between precincts. As evidenced by his previous work, McQueen has always been possessed of a singular vision. Widows may be his most mainstream effort, but it definitely has not dulled his edges.

Widows

Directed by: Steve McQueen

Written by: Gillian Flynn, Steve McQueen; based on the novel by Lynda La Plante

Starring: Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Jacki Weaver, Carrie Coon, Robert Duvall, Garret Dillahunt, Jon Bernthal, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Lukas Haas, Adepero Oduye, Kevin J. O'Connor