The Movie: Widows
The Director: Steve McQueen
The Cast: Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall, Jon Bernthal, Carrie Coon, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Kevin J. O'Connor, Jon Michael Hill
The Story: Set in contemporary Chicago, amid a time of turmoil, four women with nothing in common except a debt left behind by their dead husbands' criminal activities, take fate into their own hands, and conspire to forge a future on their own terms.
The Review:
I would say this is a solid movie with a decent story and above average acting. Steve McQueen has been proving himself to be a consistent contender with films like 12 Years a Slave, Shame, and Hunger under his belt although I wouldn't necessarily hold this film in that same cinematic stratosphere. The point of the story aims to show us how white men will abuse positions of political power to consolidate wealth and oppress minorities and that black men are generally low level criminals in comparison.
I would have liked to see less of those tired angles and more of a focus on the women in the film, what their lives were like before they are put into the perilous predicament, and how they rise to occasion. This would have made each of their stories a lot more impactful instead of having to serve almost equal time alongside all the various male characters whose stories needed to be attended to. To me, none of the performances male or female really stood out although I did like the depth that Elizabeth Debicki brought to her character and Cynthia Erivo continues to prove she needs a leading role of her own one of these days.
Cinematographer Sean Bobbitt has worked with McQueen on all of the aforementioned films and their partnership behind the lens is always stunning, this film being no exception. They always seem to find unique camera angles that gives everything a fresh perspective and I absolutely love how they let the camera linger on shots instead of chopping everything up in the editing room.
Overall this is a technically superior film, I just don't think the material was up to McQueen's standards and the effort he gets from his cast seems to bear that out. I can see where he wanted to go with the movie, I just feel like it fell flat when matched up with the lofty expectations of a film maker who will still have a brilliant body of work when it's all said and done.
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