'Widows' Review: It's An Acting Showcase In The Female-Led Heist Drama Directed By Steve McQueen

Image from The National

By Darian Scalamoni

Steve McQueen has entered new fare with his latest film, his most commercial to date, which is a gritty, Chicago-centered heist drama following the women who aim to finish a robbery planned by their late-husbands to pay a debt owed to an upcoming Chicago politician.

            After tackling movies about starvation, sex addiction and slavery with Hunger, Shame and 12 Years a Slave, respectively, McQueen adapts the 1980s British TV series of the same name into a sweeping crime film that includes one of the best acting ensembles I’ve seen in a while. McQueen embraces the grimy Chicago streets to continuously have the audience feel uneasy with each and every twist and turn.

            Widows is led by Viola Davis, who plays Veronica, the widow of Liam Neeson’s character, Henry Rawlings, a fast-talking businessman who spends his nights with his team of robbers taking from others. It’s within the opening scene in which you see their fiery and explosive death which leads to the deaths of the whole crew. Davis brings together her own crew that includes fellow widows of fallen robbers, Linda, played by Michelle Rodriguez and Alice, played by Elizabeth Debicki to finish a job that is laid out in a book left by Henry with details for all past heists and this upcoming planned job.

            Veronica decides to do this after a local criminal/potential politician Jamal Manning, played by budding star, Brian Tyree Henry, shows up at her apartment one night giving her a month to restore the $2 million that was stolen by her late husband and his confidants in their final, fatal mission. She realizes that Linda and Veronica will eventually face the same conundrum she’s facing so she contacts them to pull of the heist.

            McQueen does a magnificent job of bouncing from character to character as the other storylines follow the individual happenings of Linda and Alice while also chronicling the impending alderman race for the 18^th ward between Manning and Tom Mulligan, played by Colin Farrell. Mulligan is the son of Trump-like power broker and former alderman, Jack Mulligan, played by Robert Duvall. He blends current themes of gender and race together along with the very obvious turmoil set in Chicago, today.

            McQueen wrote the script with care along with Gillian Flynn, the woman responsible for such novels as Gone Girl, Dark Places and Sharp Objects, all which have been adapted for the screen. Widows is only her second screenplay after Gone Girl. While the weaving in and out of storylines is handled carefully with the writing and editing, two characters stand out, in my opinion, as potentially, Oscar-nominated.

            The characters I’m speaking of are Debicki’s Alice and Daniel Kaluuya’s supporting turn as Jatemme. Kaluuya slithers on the screen with a quiet but important presence as Jamal’s brother, who does most of his dirty work. Kaluuya disappears on screen in a role that is a far cry from what he accomplished with his Oscar-nominated role in Get Out just last year. It’s as if the character of Jatemme does not blink throughout with his eerie cool, calm and collected demeanor he maintains throughout his violent doings.

            Debicki’s Alice is a much different character, however, performs at just as high as a level. The 28-year-old Australian actress commands the screen whenever she’s on it as a young woman on the crew who gets out from under her abusive husband and deceitful mother to discover that she has more to offer than she could’ve ever imagined. The character is so very raw and multidimensional that she grows before your eyes on screen. Though she appears alongside Viola Davis, an Oscar-winning actress, multiple times within the film, your eyes gravitate to Alice more so than any other character in Widows.

            The unique editing style along with a sleek script, amazing performances and refreshing camera work leads to a crime drama that I think could be destined for some Academy Awards nominations and maybe even, a couple of wins. Widows hits on all cylinders and has catapulted into my top 10 for the year.

8.7