Wid­ows

If you were to take bets on what Steve McQueen’s pas­sion project would be, few would guess ​‘a film based on an ​’80s ITV dra­ma about women car­ry­ing out a heist’. Over the past decade McQueen has made a name for him­self direct­ing har­row­ing dra­mat­ic fea­tures such as Shame and 12 Years a Slave – with Wid­ows, he turns his con­sid­er­able tal­ent and deft under­stand­ing of the human con­di­tion to a new chal­lenge and a new genre.

Veron­i­ca Rawl­ings (Vio­la Davis) is bereft when her hus­band (Liam Nee­son) dies along with his crim­i­nal crew in a job gone wrong, but has lit­tle time to mourn as it emerges Hen­ry left a debt of $2 mil­lion behind. Men­aced by the Man­ning broth­ers (Bri­an Tyree Hen­ry and Daniel Kalu­uya) she devis­es a plan to get the mon­ey, and turns to the wid­ows of her late husband’s accom­plices in order to pull it off. Mean­while, Tom Mul­li­gan (Col­in Far­rell) and his father Jack (Robert Duvall) gear up for a polit­i­cal elec­tion which inter­sects with Veronica’s plans.

McQueen does what he does best, cre­at­ing a ful­ly-realised world con­tain­ing com­plex and com­pelling char­ac­ters while once again demon­strat­ing his styl­is­tic flair. Intri­cate mir­ror shots and one par­tic­u­lar­ly can­ny con­ver­sa­tion in a car are stand­out set-pieces, as McQueen presents mod­ern-day Chica­go as a city built on cor­rup­tion and exploitation.

Pow­er strug­gles are a way of life for every char­ac­ter: Veron­i­ca attempts to fix her husband’s mess; Mul­li­gan faces up to the entrenched racial imbal­ance with­in the city to bol­ster his slick polit­i­cal lega­cy; and the Man­ning broth­ers eye gov­ern­ment office as a means of escap­ing the dirty grind of their trou­bled past. Although it’s pos­si­ble to sim­ply enjoy Wid­ows as a taut crime dra­ma with some excep­tion­al twists, it’s an equal­ly com­pelling com­men­tary on gen­der and racial imbal­ance in Amer­i­ca, as well as a study of com­plex, flawed char­ac­ters in des­per­ate situations.

Davis deliv­ers a knock­out per­for­mance as the ring­leader of the scheme, com­bin­ing pow­er­ful sto­icism with pri­vate vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty as a woman dri­ven to des­per­a­tion dur­ing a time of cri­sis. Eliz­a­beth Debic­ki is equal­ly remark­able as Alice Gun­ner, who is con­stant­ly beat­en down by her moth­er and all the men she’s ever met. Her trans­for­ma­tion from sub­mis­sive waif into can­ny, world-wise crea­ture is bewitch­ing, and con­firms that she is a force to be reck­oned with beyond her bril­liant per­for­mance in Jen­nifer Fox’s abuse dra­ma, The Tale.

Where the Oceans fran­chise is charis­mat­ic and fizzy, Wid­ows is dark and fran­tic, con­cerned with the risks peo­ple take out of des­per­a­tion or greed. The stakes feel real, and McQueen posi­tions the sto­ry with­in the con­text of the world we live in. While most heist movies are about char­ac­ters act­ing out of a desire for excite­ment or cov­et­ing some price­less object, for the women of Wid­ows, it’s a means to an end – a means to escape. In fact, it’s not real­ly about the heist at all. It’s about how inher­ent­ly unfair the cur­rent world order is, and how if you don’t learn to fight for what’s yours, you’re liable to get eat­en alive.