Widows

Dir: Steve McQueen

2018

****

I’ve always loved a bit of Lynda La Plante having grown up watching many of her superb thrillers on television, but I don’t think I would have ever expected any of her old TV shows to be made into a Hollywood movie. For me her works are classic Sunday night telly – the best Sunday night telly you can get, along with Poirot (the David Suchet years) and The Darling Buds of May. Egg sandwiches, buttered malt loaf and a bit of Prime Suspect, that was Sunday night telly for me in the late 80s/early 90s and it was glorious. Widows was a TV show that was a little before my time but I did rewatch it when the first and second series were repeated in the early 90s when the sequel, She’s Out, was made. The TV series was ahead of its time but very much of its time, with the script being original and exciting but the budget being limited (and the hair being massive). Steve McQueen’s updated feature-length adaptation is refreshingly similar to the original but updated perfectly with just the right amount of change. The political aspect of the story was a clever extra element that proved timely and original. It is a satisfyingly slow-burning affair with the story that develops gradually, making the conclusion all the more striking. The beginning of the film sees a robbery go wrong and renowned thief Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson) and his team (including Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Coburn Goss and Jon Bernthal) killed as the van there are in is fired upon until it explodes by armed police. Harry’s wife Veronica Rawlings (Viola Davis), a Chicago teachers' union delegate is left distraught and alone. Unbeknownst to her, the money that Harry and his team stole before being killed belonged to Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), a crime boss and politician who needed the money ($2 million) to finance his electoral campaign for alderman, a South Side ward of Chicago. The way he sees it, Veronica now owes him and he believes Harry left her quite wealthy. However, the opposite is true. Jamal sends his brother Jatemme to regularly harass and follow her until she pays up. Manning is running against Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell), the next-in-line of a dynastic family who have historically dominated the alderman position. His father (Robert Duvall) is very critical of his work and has only stepped aside due to poor health. Meanwhile, Veronica discovers Harry's notebook, which contains a detailed plan for a heist of $5 million. She decides to carry out the plan to repay her debt to Jamal, and recruits two of the other widows, Alice and Linda (Michelle Rodriguez and Elizabeth Debicki), to assist her. The fourth widow, Amanda, does not show at their initial meeting; when Veronica visits Amanda at her home and notices Harry's flask on a table, she realizes that Harry is the father of Amanda's newborn child. Devastated by Harry's infidelity, Veronica leaves. Alice buys the getaway car and guns, while Linda is tasked with deciphering a blueprint in Harry's plan. Alice uses a real estate executive (played by Lukas Haas) with whom she is in a transactional relationship to identify the blueprint as a safe in Jack Mulligan's home. When Veronica's loyal chauffeur is murdered by Manning's people, Linda recruits Belle (Cynthia Erivo), her children’s babysitter, to be their driver. Veronica visits the Mulligan home to ask Jack for protection from Manning - a request he rebuffs - and to case the premises in advance of the heist, while Belle scans the external security. Veronica acquires the code to the safe by blackmailing the CEO of the Mulligans' security company, using incriminating photos left in Harry's notebook. The heist doesn’t quite go to plan and the conclusion is both shocking and unexpected. We learn a little about each character as the film goes along proving that a little character development goes a long way. The cast is near perfect, although I didn’t think Liam Neeson brought much to his role and I thought Jon Bernthal and Lukas Haas were somewhat shortchanged. Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez and Elizabeth Debicki are perfect as the widows themselves and carry the film effortlessly. I liked the political side of the story and I enjoyed the relationship between Colin Firth and Robert Duvall’s characters even though Duvall’s character wasn’t entirely necessary in the bigger picture. My favourite character/performance was from Daniel Kaluuya as the mob boss brother. I still remember Kaluuya as Parking Pataweyo and I love how his career has jumped the way it has. He is incredibly intimidating as his character and is the most convincingly ‘bad’ bad-guy I’ve seen in film for a while. Steve McQueen wrote the screenplay with Gillian Flynn and I think asking her to collaborate with him on it was a stroke of genius. Everything about it fits, it is refreshingly smooth throughout and even though it is nothing new when you strip it down to its bare bones, it is told in such a way that feels almost radical in its originality. Fresh, full of suspense and intrigue but criminally overlooked. Ain’t that just the way. Perfect viewing for any evening of the week, not just a Sunday.