Widows is a Sputnik chandelier loaded up with Hue smart bulbs: A stylish, well-worn, and still serviceable old scaffold screwed in tight with 2018-ness; a surprising twist on an oft-aped formula, one suddenly awash in color.
Before this trusty steed of metaphor breaks into a spirited canter, I’ll take a cue from director Steve McQueen (not that one, natch) and give a firm tug on the reins.
What I mean to say is Widows is a smart, brooding, sometimes chilly take on the familiar heist-film formula. Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, and Carrie Coon are (you guessed it) widows whose husbands all died (at Fade In) in a big-time robbery gone bad. The prior lives and dealings of these men are sketched out only loosely in this film, which focuses right from go on the women left behind.
Davis — who was married to Liam Neeson, the evident ringleader and mastermind — soon finds herself thrust into leftover nastiness when a gangland kingpin (Bryan Tyree Henry) calls in her late husband’s debts. With the thumb screws on, Davis has to come up with a sizeable chunk of money in a month’s time. She recruits other widows (eventually joined by the excellent Cynthia Erivo) to pull off an of-the-moment take on “one last job and we’re out.”
In so doing, the strangers are thrust into an only-in-a-movie underworld of organized crime, ladies for hire, and Chicago municipal elections (!). Colin Farrell, along with the aforementioned Mr. Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Stephen Hill (of the new Magnum P.I. reboot), and Robert Duvall all stalk this gangster’s paradise (with Kaluuya in particular breaking his 2017 mold to play a stone-cold baddie with overdue abandon). The ladies must navigate unfamiliar territory, and one another, to orchestrate and execute the “job.”
The twisty plot did right by my ICEE, but the 2 hour 9 minute story (co-written by McQueen and Gone Girl’s Gillian Flynn) is only half the reason to see this film.
Equal parts art-house and late-night-cable fare, Widows is melancholy, bracing, and at times unforgiving — shot in a cool, meditative way by the same fellow who did 12 Years a Slave. McQueen plays with race and sex the way most of these films play with guns and mindless body count; the actual violence is sparse (relatively speaking), but it’s memorable when it happens and you’ll hardly miss it anyway. And the performances are rock-solid, with the deep bench of talent punching well above what you’d expect for a story of this sort.
That said, it’s not without the occasional overreach: one or two of the more zeitgeisty scenes feel a tad forced, for example, and the Colin Farrell subplot is all just a bit too arch for me. But in all, Widows is a confident, slow-burning masterclass in character-driven caper pictures, with unassailable leads and an honest currency about it.
It’s undeniably old fashioned. But while Widows may be a restomod, it’s lovingly assembled with top-shelf parts. It’s not the original car, but it does check the boxes of our post-pantsuit society, and if we’re being fully honest, it probably drives better, too.
Haus Verdict: A hard-edged, self-assured, and of-the-moment take on the familiar heist-film formula. Delivers the goods and punches above its weight in nearly all respects. See it.
Widows opens Friday, November 16.
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