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McQueen's Widows Reconsiders the Heist Genre


It’s been five years since Steve McQueen’s last movie, 12 Years a Slave, won three Oscars including Best Picture, and so naturally movie fans have been wondering what his next project would be for years. Would it be a smaller scale drama like his earlier movies Hunger and Shame, or would it be something even more ambitious? Widows is neither. It’s a heist movie, but one taken incredibly seriously, something that seems alien to a genre that’s become synonymous with the likes of Steven Soderbergh Ocean’s movies or light-hearted caper films like The Italian Job, How to Steal a Million, or of course, The Great Muppet Caper. But this is a genre that’s also included The Asphalt Jungle and Dog Day Afternoon. Widows is aiming to be something more along those lines.
The movie is centred on the widows of a group of criminals in Chicago who are killed following a botched robbery of a corrupt politician Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry) running for alderman. Threatened by Manning, Veronica Rawlins (Viola Davis) recruits Linda Perelli (Michelle Rodriguez) and Alice Gunner (Elizabeth Debicki) to pull off their husbands’ final heist on Manning’s equally corrupt political opponent Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell).
Widows is actually based on a British television series from the 1980s by Lynda La Plante, but in adapting it for a modern American audience McQueen wrote the screenplay with Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, accounting for the similar bleak tone, plot twists, and critiques of toxic masculinity. The main story is supplemented by a handful of subplots following the womens’ individual lives and mourning processes, the political power plays between the Manning and Mulligan sides, and the perspective of a beautician Belle (Cynthia Erivo) who only late in the story joins the heist crew. There are a host of issues explored through these, from the stigmatization of sex work and the nastiness of electoral politics to interracial marriage and police shootings. But it does result in some inconsistent pacing between storylines. While Alice is making strides in her transactional relationship with a wealthy mogul (Lukas Haas), Veronica is mostly focussed in the past. And the incentive for Alice, Linda, and especially Belle to take part in Veronica’s scheme isn’t nearly strong enough. Unlike many heist films where the job itself takes up a lot of the second and third acts, this one is much more about the build-up, with the heist itself playing out in a relatively short span of time. This is refreshing though, as it’s not overly complicated or convoluted, and therefore more real. A heist is after all just an extravagant robbery, and Widows knows this, not dressing their heist up as anything more than that.
The film isn’t short on compelling performances to carry this off. Viola Davis continues to excel as one of the great actresses working today, skilfully taking on Veronica’s attempts to reconcile the death of her husband and their turbulent relationship while maintaining her strength and resolve to complete his last mission. With power, anger, and deep sadness, Elizabeth Debicki delivers her best performance yet as the most wounded and underestimated of the trio. Michelle Rodriguez is really good too, though Linda is sorely underdeveloped compared to her companions; and Cynthia Erivo, fresh off of Bad Times at the El Royale, makes the most of her insubstantial part. As the villains, Henry captures the amoral ambition of his character while Farrell the insecure nepotism of his. Notable in small roles are Carrie Coon, Garret Dillahunt, Kevin J. O’Connor, and Molly Kunz, while Liam Neeson, Jacki Weaver, and Robert Duvall nicely round out the veteran cast. But perhaps the most striking stand-out is Daniel Kaluuya as Manning’s psychotic enforcer. Kaluuya’s proven multiple times now how good of an actor he is, but he’s downright scary in this movie, as he casually manipulates, tortures, and executes various people with absolutely no apprehension.
These sequences are the most intense in the movie, aided by McQueen’s use of various camera actions to draw out the suspense, like a circular pan in one instance, and especially the long take. Similar techniques were used to emphasize the terror in 12 Years a Slave. And there are a few notable long takes in Widows, the most interesting being one that follows a car (with the camera mounted to the hood) around a neighbourhood from a campaign stop to headquarters while the characters talk from inside the car. It’s a great way of giving the audience a sense of space and environment as we see the vehicle driving by various apartment buildings, businesses, and small parks.
Widows is nowhere near as singularly powerful as 12 Years a Slave, and so McQueen’s long-awaited return may feel a tad disappointing. But it is more complex and interesting a movie than the similarly set-up Ocean’s 8. It presents a thrilling, invigorating story peppered with worthy performances from an excellent ensemble and contemplative themes -even if it doesn’t say much more about them than a number of other movies, including from this year, already have.

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