Modern Classic: Widows (2018)
Almost five years ago, Widows by director Steve McQueen, had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. To my mind it’s one of the best crime drama’s in recent times.
It combines amazing character work with important social issues while also delivering sufficient heist movie thrills within a satisfying crime story.
Widows is directed by McQueen, from a script by acclaimed writer Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl) and himself, and based on the 1983 series, written by British novelist Lynda La Plante.
This version is set in Chicago and tells the story of Veronica (Viola Davis), whose life is turned upside down when her husband Harry (Liam Neeson) and three other men are killed during a botched robbery attempt.
Soon after she gets a visit from local crime boss Jamal Manning (Byron Tyree Henry), who is running for alderman against Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell), following in the footsteps of his father Tom (Robert Duvall).
Jamal claims it was his 2 million dollars that went up in flames during Harry’s fatal shootout with the police, and now he wants it back. From Veronica. Or else…
Veronica obviously doesn’t have two million, but after finding Harry’s notebook with details of his next job, she comes up with a plan to stage a heist of her own, together with two of the other three (the fourth just had a baby) widows: blonde trophy wife Alice (Elizabeth Debicki) and tough single mom Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), who eventually brings along the even tougher Belle (Cynthia Erivo) as a getaway driver, who brings her own gun.
That’s a lot of plot already, but fear not, the movie has plenty more, and some big reveals too, as to how everything is connected.
The cast is stacked with great actors in even the smallest roles, while McQueen keeps the story moving at a brisk pace, helped by the fine camera work of Sean Bobbitt, who also shot McQueen’s earlier features, and some neat editing choices by Denis Villeneuve’s go-to guy Joe Walker.
Widows packs a powerful punch and even though the movie runs over two hours there probably was some material left on the cutting floor to come up with a version fit for a theatrical release.
In the finished version there is a lot of emphasis on the character work, especially between the three (and then four) leading ladies. Davis, Erivo, Rodriguez and Debicki are all amazing, with the latter perhaps being the standout, because her arc is so unexpected and the actress gets the chance to turn a fairly standard role into something else completely.
These characters really drive the story, but thematically there is also a lot going on, with McQueen tackling topics like gender, race and moral corruption in sometimes surprising ways.
Widows is one of those rare movies that you can watch again (and again), because there is so much to unpack - and to cherish.