Widows

Widows was originally a British Primetime television crime drama starring Ann Mitchell, Fiona Headley, Maureen O’Farrell, and Debby Bishop that aired between 1983 and 1995. Written by crime author, Lynda La Plante, the show about three recently widowed women coming together to complete the heist their criminal husbands failed to complete, acted as a rebuke against the genre’s dependence on male-led narratives and provided an opportunity for women to don the ski mask and become criminals in their own right by organizing a heist without assistance from the opposite sex. Although relatively unknown, it was well received enough to get an American remake starring Mercedes Ruhl, Brooke Shields, Rosie Perez, and N’Bushe Wright in 2002, and eventually a film adaptation in 2018 starring Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez, and Cynthia Erivo. Whatever thoughts people had on any version of this idea, this latest theatrical rendition is probably the biggest and most accessible, but not necessarily the most successful by default.

After four men take part in a heist that results in their deaths, their widows try to adjust to life without their significant other. Alice (played by Elizabeth Debicki) is forced to become a sugar baby by her abusive mother, Agnieska (played by Jacki Weaver) now that the financial support she received from her abusive husband, Florek (played by Jon Bernthal) is gone, Linda (played by Michelle Rodriguez) loses her store due to her husband, Carlos (played by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) pawning off her earnings to repay previously owned debts, and Veronica (played by Viola Davis) learns about her husband, Harry’s (played by Liam Neeson) criminal life in a bad way when she is threatened by crime boss and politician, Jamal Manning (played by Brian Tyree Henry). He informs her that Harry stole roughly $2 million dollars of his money and wants it back in order to secure a alderman position in the south side ward of Chicago, which he is running for against Jack Mulligan (played by Collin Farrell), the son of the man who previously held the position, Tom Mulligan (played by Robert Duvall). With nothing left to live for now that her husband is dead, and with Harry leaving her instructions on where the money was left, Veronica contacts Linda and Alice in order to recruit them for the heist, who after some convincing, decide to get involved as well. After bringing in a beautician named Belle (played by Cynthia Erivo) to be their driver, these four will try to complete what their husband’s couldn’t and retrieve the money before those who will use it poorly get to it first.

With rave reviews from critics but less enthusiasm from audiences, Widows tries to come across as a blood-pumping thriller with popcorn-flick level engagement but instead feels like a messily compiled concoction with more swagger than actual game.

Turning a TV series into a film can come with some hurdles, as on the one hand, a film can have a wider reach, a higher budget which would result in a cleaner and more cinematic look, and could include bigger names both in front of and behind the camera, but on the other hand, a film doesn’t have as much time to flesh out story threads, character arcs and themes since it needs to be condensed to a feature length, which can result in some things being left out. The premise is fairly small yet has a hook that would work for a film, and for the first few minutes, it does a pretty good job balancing these different women’s personal lives, showing their similar living situations, personal struggles and the circumstances that led them to each other and enacting this plot. However, as the film continues and more of the plot starts to unfold, it becomes less and less engaging and more and more sloppy. For something that should be very straightforward in goal and purpose, the film includes a ton of uninteresting and complicated political machinations that slowly erode the picture into an overly moody and soulless experience. If the movie wanted to be a harsh, gritty, and brutal picture (which is what it looks like from the amount of mean-spirited and depressing content featured), it shouldn’t have advertising that presents something more traditionally mainstream or have a tone of voice that is trying to be action-packed in a way that feels more gun-happy and sparky than slow and consequential. There’s a coldness to this movie that isn’t matched with smart writing, so everything just feels mean, pointless and has nothing to say despite featuring a lot of stuff that clearly is supposed to have some political or societal meaning, and a lot of that bizarrely comes from the script and the direction.

This film was directed and written by Steve McQueen (who previously directed Shame, Hunger and the critically acclaimed award-winning film, 12 Years a Slave) and was co-written by Gillian Flynn (who wrote the novel and the screenplay for the critically acclaimed award-winning Gone Girl), so this is a pretty high-profile team and should’ve resulted in something instantly effective, but their status and prestige may have blinded them to what this kind of story requires. The dialogue is stale and even a little cringy at times, the acting has no sense of personality or life, it has a lot of fancy camera and editing moments that don’t always feel needed, and instead of approaching this idea with a gritty yet still mainstream mindset, it dashes any sense of fun or likability at almost every second in exchange for something more bitter and seemingly critic-pandering. These two are talented artists and given their body of work, the way the film is presented makes more sense, but they feel like the wrong people to lead this idea if the goal was to make it appealing to all audiences.

The cast is surprising robust and has someone recognizable in almost every corner. Even excluding the four lead actresses, the movie features people like Colin Farrell, Liam Neeson, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Robert Duvall, Jacki Weaver, Carrie Coon, Jon Bernthal, Lukas Haas, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, etc, and each feel like they could really thrive in this idea and environment if written in a way that brings grit in a characterful manner. But since the film is hellbent on not being entertaining and more on being ‘’important’’, every actor is not allowed to be fun or even that much like a character, with all the acting being on the same level of lifeless indifference with specific spouts of unexpected rage. It feels so bleak and hollow to experience, and since none of them are written with much depth outside of their pre-established history, you don’t really get a sense of why anybody is doing what they are doing, which is especially noticeable when the entire movie is about obtaining a sum of money.

This is the worst with the four women, as despite all being capable performers in their own right, none of them have any personality, they aren’t given many defining traits that would feel useful in a heist environment, and sometimes their roles actively contradict with who they are as actors, and not in a good way. Michelle Rodriguez is a fun talent and has proven to be a cool figure in many movies prior, and while her acting has never been that good, it never needed to be with the roles she was given. Here, she’s not allowed to be the muscle or much of anything, she just exists in the background, says a few lines (not very well, mind you) and nothing else, she is totally wasted. Cynthia Erivo isn’t too bad (despite coming out of nowhere halfway through the movie), yet her acting, her personal fashion choices and overall look as an actress clashes with her supposedly streetwise, punky look. Viola Davis honestly feels prime for this story, as does someone like Elizabeth Debicki (who comes the closest to having a plot), yet both are still written badly, have no character and their storylines feel so pointlessly mean and cruel that they aren’t fun to watch or root for. People like Carrie Coon, Jacki Weaver and especially Liam Neeson feel wasted in such small roles, Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall are noticeably bad and contain dialogue so juvenile and vulgar that it honestly comes across as pathetic, and while Brian Tyree Henry and Daniel Kaluuya are equally bland and poorly written antagonists, the two are such electric performers that they are at least enjoyable to watch (with Kaluuya being the only one who looks like he’s having fun).

You can feel the film trying at every opportunity to be fancier than it needs to be through the use of several cinematic tropes and overly polished visuals that feel so empty when they are backed by nothing that visually impressive. It’s strange to see a property that was more than likely positioned to look very streel-level and gritty portrayed with so much shine and gloss, so much so that it calls into question whether a more grounded and even dirtier design would’ve been more appropriate. The cinematography by Sean Bobbit and the editing by Joe Walker is pretty good when looked at from outside the realms of this movie, with the shots being well-filmed, the cuts being concise and even sometimes timed well with the action, and results in some very nice tracking movements and effective angles which leads to a cinematic delivery, but feel useless in a story that doesn’t require that form of delivery. It comes across as needless ritzy jewelry on a mannequin that would’ve stood out more with a ragged, messier look. Outside of the opening which does a cool trick of portraying a car chase through a first-person perspective from the back of an open van, none of the cinematography really stands out as memorable because it just feels like a useless cover rather than a purposeful tool. The production design by Adam Stockhausen is washed-out and despite also looking very pristine and clean, doesn’t mesh well with the dirty color palette and often awkward lighting the film has through most scenes (particularly at nighttime). When the film reaches the actual heist, that’s where it starts to feel more appropriately gritty, with a shaky hand-held feel to the shots that matches the film’s established tone, and even the musical score by Hans Zimmer picks up and brings a needed fast-paced heart-pounding element to what was originally a pretty slow burning feature.

The 2018 film version of Widows is a wedding cake decorated with all the extravagant colors, decadent floral toppings, and wildly showy whipped cream and icing, but at its core features the most basic ingredients and flavorless recipe (with a few eggshells left in the batter). Instead of producing a movie like Heat or The Godfather, which told a gritty epic story in a way that still felt mainstream, this movie is cold, unfeeling, boring and features no sense of life or soul in any of its writing, direction or acting. It has a bland delivery of what could’ve been a fun premise, the acting is either too over-the-top to feel believable or too somber to feel engaging, the visuals are honestly too good and don’t match with what’s required for this kind of story, and even if the previous TV shows weren’t incredible, they were probably better handled than this movie and knew how to play with this premise in a way that would work for its target audience. Maybe not the worst film and for those that are okay with watching a heist film where the leads have no chemistry or identities, this might be for you, but otherwise, this was a plan that was not well executed.