"Said he was going straight to hell. But hey, Chicago will do."
The metropolitan locale of Chicago becomes an American version of Casablanca in Steve McQueen's Widows, a heist movie with the resolve and the instinct to broaden its scope well beyond the typical limitations of the genre. If Chicago isn't literally hell on earth, it becomes a prison for its characters to navigate, a tangled web of corruption and avarice that demands a daring escape. Here, political figures and citizens alike will be doomed to a certain type of permanent destiny, based on their race, family history, or everything in between. In one of the film's most notable sequences, alderman candidate Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell) and his campaign assistant (Molly Kunz) take a trip from one area of their district to another. Of course, the real appeal of the scene is McQueen's technical and thematic brilliance, as he places the camera on the outside of the car to showcase the shift from housing projects to fenced-in suburban fortresses. But if you're listening closely during the scene, we hear Mulligan lamenting the circumstances that have left him in a precarious position.
He isn't alone. The characters in Widows rarely make their own circumstances- the circumstances make them. Jack is shaped by his familial bonds with Chicago, Veronica's (Viola Davis) path is pre-determined by the passing of her husband (Liam Neeson) and the relentless threats of Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), Alice (Elizabeth Debicki) is controlled by her domineering mother (Jacki Weaver), and so on. With those situations established, McQueen and co-writer Gillian Flynn stage contrasting attempts at escape or liberation; some fail, some succeed, and some don't even come into play until the final act.
The film begins with a series of cross-cuts, as McQueen alternates between a daring heist conducted by a team of four men and brief snapshots of their relationships with the wives they left behind. Veronica and Harry spend an intimate morning in bed; at the same time, he tries to keep his partner from bleeding out. Linda (Michelle Rodriguez) and Carlos (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) fight over ownership of their family store, Florek (Jon Bernthal) "apologizes" to Alice for abusing her, and Jimmy (Coburn Goss) totally disregards his wife (Carrie Coon) as he rushes out the door, all while (at a totally different moment) they run for their lives from a job gone wrong. At the end, the cops open fire on their van, killing them all instantly.
The four widows, who have never once met or even come into contact with one another, are left to grieve the unexpected demise of their husbands. As a backdrop to this disastrous robbery, Jack and Jamal Manning are facing off in a heated political contest. Jack's father (Robert Duvall), himself a stalwart of the city's political landscape, is retiring after a health scare, and Jamal has a serious chance at flipping a seat that belonged to the Mulligan family for years. Along with fearsome brother Jatemme (Daniel Kaluuya), Jamal is running a campaign for the ages- but he needs the money to pull off the upset. And unfortunately, that money was stolen by Harry and later burnt to a crisp in the explosion that sent the van flying sky high.
So Jamal makes the choice to go directly to Veronica with a very serious threat- get me that $2 million dollars or you die. Left with the plans to Harry's last job thanks to help from limo driver Bash (Garret Dillahunt), Veronica makes the decision to execute a major heist. With nowhere left to go, she contacts Linda, Alice, and (much later) new driver Belle (Cynthia Erivo) to do what Harry and his crew couldn't pull off.
In the director's first project since the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave, McQueen assembles what could feel like a grab-bag of hot-button issues, including Chicago gentrification, police violence, the complex formation of identity, political strife, and so much more. Along with the genuinely expansive ensemble, Widows has the feel of a true epic, even if it runs only a hair above two hours. In the hands of less talented filmmakers, the sheer scope of the story would quickly prove to be too daunting to handle; there's nearly a dozen characters with complex arcs to untangle. But with McQueen and Flynn working in tandem, there's an excellent balance of disparate elements on display, one that is as deliberate as it is effective.
McQueen is a fascinating director, as his impulses veer towards both the economical and the extravagant. The opening scene is a feat of spectacular filmmaking bravura, as is the rather showy car scene. In one particularly frightening moment, Jatemme Manning forces two political prisoners to rap whatever they were singing when they were locked up. As they sing, McQueen's camera rapidly circles around the trio as Jatemme intimidates them with his fierce demeanor, grinding to a halt when the more violent half of the Manning brothers murders them both. But for all of these spectacular flourishes, McQueen's style is quite often a beacon of stripped-down excellence; after all, this is how you turn an epic panorama of modern Chicago into a crisp 128-minute thriller. The heist scenes have a certain gritty precision, and the limited use of Hans Zimmer's score makes the film feel more like a blunt instrument. At its worst, it feels a little clunky, but when McQueen is firing on all cylinders, the dramatic minimalism serves as an intensifying effect.
As much as this is a McQueen film, Widows also has Gillian Flynn's fingerprints all over it. The writer of Gone Girl and Sharp Objects delivers rip-roaring populist entertainment with a healthy serving of intelligent wit, and this collaboration is no exception. A major twist gave me a distinctly Gone Girl-esque rush, and the film has a snappy, wicked kind of momentum. But McQueen and Flynn's script is most astounding for its range of three-dimensional characters, armed and constrained by their unique assortment of idiosyncrasies and internal struggles. Taught by her mother that a man is the only way to earn her keep in life, Alice is on a trajectory to a different sort of understanding of womanhood. We see her develop an online relationship with a posh businessman, only for that dynamic to be complicated by the demands of the heist. Belle and Linda feel the crunch of economic pressures, while Jamal and Jack are the only characters with enough power to change their respective fates.
Naturally, the film's most dense and challenging figure is Veronica herself, played to messy perfection by Viola Davis. Unlike many of her fellow widows, Veronica commands a certain level of power when she walks into a room, and she has the connections to face Mulligan and his ilk head-on. But as the issues of race and femininity become powerful factors in the character's journey, Davis leans into a complicated dialectic between strong-willed independence and extreme moments of private vulnerability. Simultaneously, Veronica is both a figure of spectacular empathy and a woman who can be truly difficult to like. She's prickly and laser-focused, often lamenting the ineptitude of her fellow colleagues in crime (until she realizes they're all not so different after all). But as the film goes on, we're granted a look at Veronica's past- along with these current circumstances, her life is marred by tragedy.
Eventually, Widows' central heist becomes not just a climatic plot point, but a vessel for the destruction of emotional and social barriers within the confines of this city. The heist is no longer about paying back Jamal- it's about toppling a complex web that has made life in Chicago a nightmare for its core characters. Like many socially conscious takes on popular material, not everyone gets to live happily ever after; not every character gets to escape this psychological Casablanca. But Widows ends in an interesting place for Veronica, and I'd love to see just how McQueen decided which characters would be granted a reprieve and which ones would find themselves stuck in the endless cycles of corruption.
As with many ambitious films this awards season, Widows demands a second glance- especially since my first viewing was marred by a talkative crowd. But as a thriller, it's twisty, biting, and immensely thoughtful, featuring the kind of incredible scope that few films would attempt, let alone pull off with such terrific success. In following up a rare masterpiece, McQueen has continued to demonstrate why he's one of the very best, uniting form, character, and theme for a gripping thriller with the rare knack for locating a specific place in the mind of its audience.
THE FINAL GRADE: A- (8.3/10)
Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox
The metropolitan locale of Chicago becomes an American version of Casablanca in Steve McQueen's Widows, a heist movie with the resolve and the instinct to broaden its scope well beyond the typical limitations of the genre. If Chicago isn't literally hell on earth, it becomes a prison for its characters to navigate, a tangled web of corruption and avarice that demands a daring escape. Here, political figures and citizens alike will be doomed to a certain type of permanent destiny, based on their race, family history, or everything in between. In one of the film's most notable sequences, alderman candidate Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell) and his campaign assistant (Molly Kunz) take a trip from one area of their district to another. Of course, the real appeal of the scene is McQueen's technical and thematic brilliance, as he places the camera on the outside of the car to showcase the shift from housing projects to fenced-in suburban fortresses. But if you're listening closely during the scene, we hear Mulligan lamenting the circumstances that have left him in a precarious position.
He isn't alone. The characters in Widows rarely make their own circumstances- the circumstances make them. Jack is shaped by his familial bonds with Chicago, Veronica's (Viola Davis) path is pre-determined by the passing of her husband (Liam Neeson) and the relentless threats of Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), Alice (Elizabeth Debicki) is controlled by her domineering mother (Jacki Weaver), and so on. With those situations established, McQueen and co-writer Gillian Flynn stage contrasting attempts at escape or liberation; some fail, some succeed, and some don't even come into play until the final act.
The film begins with a series of cross-cuts, as McQueen alternates between a daring heist conducted by a team of four men and brief snapshots of their relationships with the wives they left behind. Veronica and Harry spend an intimate morning in bed; at the same time, he tries to keep his partner from bleeding out. Linda (Michelle Rodriguez) and Carlos (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) fight over ownership of their family store, Florek (Jon Bernthal) "apologizes" to Alice for abusing her, and Jimmy (Coburn Goss) totally disregards his wife (Carrie Coon) as he rushes out the door, all while (at a totally different moment) they run for their lives from a job gone wrong. At the end, the cops open fire on their van, killing them all instantly.
The four widows, who have never once met or even come into contact with one another, are left to grieve the unexpected demise of their husbands. As a backdrop to this disastrous robbery, Jack and Jamal Manning are facing off in a heated political contest. Jack's father (Robert Duvall), himself a stalwart of the city's political landscape, is retiring after a health scare, and Jamal has a serious chance at flipping a seat that belonged to the Mulligan family for years. Along with fearsome brother Jatemme (Daniel Kaluuya), Jamal is running a campaign for the ages- but he needs the money to pull off the upset. And unfortunately, that money was stolen by Harry and later burnt to a crisp in the explosion that sent the van flying sky high.
So Jamal makes the choice to go directly to Veronica with a very serious threat- get me that $2 million dollars or you die. Left with the plans to Harry's last job thanks to help from limo driver Bash (Garret Dillahunt), Veronica makes the decision to execute a major heist. With nowhere left to go, she contacts Linda, Alice, and (much later) new driver Belle (Cynthia Erivo) to do what Harry and his crew couldn't pull off.
In the director's first project since the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave, McQueen assembles what could feel like a grab-bag of hot-button issues, including Chicago gentrification, police violence, the complex formation of identity, political strife, and so much more. Along with the genuinely expansive ensemble, Widows has the feel of a true epic, even if it runs only a hair above two hours. In the hands of less talented filmmakers, the sheer scope of the story would quickly prove to be too daunting to handle; there's nearly a dozen characters with complex arcs to untangle. But with McQueen and Flynn working in tandem, there's an excellent balance of disparate elements on display, one that is as deliberate as it is effective.
McQueen is a fascinating director, as his impulses veer towards both the economical and the extravagant. The opening scene is a feat of spectacular filmmaking bravura, as is the rather showy car scene. In one particularly frightening moment, Jatemme Manning forces two political prisoners to rap whatever they were singing when they were locked up. As they sing, McQueen's camera rapidly circles around the trio as Jatemme intimidates them with his fierce demeanor, grinding to a halt when the more violent half of the Manning brothers murders them both. But for all of these spectacular flourishes, McQueen's style is quite often a beacon of stripped-down excellence; after all, this is how you turn an epic panorama of modern Chicago into a crisp 128-minute thriller. The heist scenes have a certain gritty precision, and the limited use of Hans Zimmer's score makes the film feel more like a blunt instrument. At its worst, it feels a little clunky, but when McQueen is firing on all cylinders, the dramatic minimalism serves as an intensifying effect.
As much as this is a McQueen film, Widows also has Gillian Flynn's fingerprints all over it. The writer of Gone Girl and Sharp Objects delivers rip-roaring populist entertainment with a healthy serving of intelligent wit, and this collaboration is no exception. A major twist gave me a distinctly Gone Girl-esque rush, and the film has a snappy, wicked kind of momentum. But McQueen and Flynn's script is most astounding for its range of three-dimensional characters, armed and constrained by their unique assortment of idiosyncrasies and internal struggles. Taught by her mother that a man is the only way to earn her keep in life, Alice is on a trajectory to a different sort of understanding of womanhood. We see her develop an online relationship with a posh businessman, only for that dynamic to be complicated by the demands of the heist. Belle and Linda feel the crunch of economic pressures, while Jamal and Jack are the only characters with enough power to change their respective fates.
Naturally, the film's most dense and challenging figure is Veronica herself, played to messy perfection by Viola Davis. Unlike many of her fellow widows, Veronica commands a certain level of power when she walks into a room, and she has the connections to face Mulligan and his ilk head-on. But as the issues of race and femininity become powerful factors in the character's journey, Davis leans into a complicated dialectic between strong-willed independence and extreme moments of private vulnerability. Simultaneously, Veronica is both a figure of spectacular empathy and a woman who can be truly difficult to like. She's prickly and laser-focused, often lamenting the ineptitude of her fellow colleagues in crime (until she realizes they're all not so different after all). But as the film goes on, we're granted a look at Veronica's past- along with these current circumstances, her life is marred by tragedy.
Eventually, Widows' central heist becomes not just a climatic plot point, but a vessel for the destruction of emotional and social barriers within the confines of this city. The heist is no longer about paying back Jamal- it's about toppling a complex web that has made life in Chicago a nightmare for its core characters. Like many socially conscious takes on popular material, not everyone gets to live happily ever after; not every character gets to escape this psychological Casablanca. But Widows ends in an interesting place for Veronica, and I'd love to see just how McQueen decided which characters would be granted a reprieve and which ones would find themselves stuck in the endless cycles of corruption.
As with many ambitious films this awards season, Widows demands a second glance- especially since my first viewing was marred by a talkative crowd. But as a thriller, it's twisty, biting, and immensely thoughtful, featuring the kind of incredible scope that few films would attempt, let alone pull off with such terrific success. In following up a rare masterpiece, McQueen has continued to demonstrate why he's one of the very best, uniting form, character, and theme for a gripping thriller with the rare knack for locating a specific place in the mind of its audience.
THE FINAL GRADE: A- (8.3/10)
Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox
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