WIDOWS – Review

Viola Davis stars in Twentieth Century Fox’s WIDOWS. Photo Credit: Merrick Morton.

The complete delight of seeing Viola Davis in the role of an elegantly-dressed, wealthy wife whose sheltered life is suddenly upended by the death of her crime boss husband, played by Liam Neeson, is one of the pleasures of crime thriller WIDOWS. The Oscar-winning actress so often seen in roles as mothers or working-class women, here plays a svelte, elegant, pampered wife, a woman dressed in tasteful expensive clothes and clutching her little dog as she leaves her luxurious Chicago penthouse apartment to spend her day shopping or lunching. It isn’t the way we usually see her but Davis pulls it off with commanding style.

WIDOWS focuses on four women with little in common other than that their husbands were members of a criminal team killed in the commission of a heist. Now faced with threats from another criminal operation, the widows band together for their own heist, in Steve McQueen’s woman-centric crime thriller. But what starts out as a highly entertaining but straightforward crime thriller, morphs midway into something that is also deeper, more meaningful.

WIDOWS does all this while never dropping its driving pace or suspense of the top-tier crime thriller it is. Oscar-winning director Steven McQueen (12 YEARS A SLAVE) co-wrote the script with Gillian Flynn (GONE GIRL), as a updating of 1980s British TV series WIDOWS, in which overlooked women take charge of their own lives. McQueen and Flynn moved the story to Chicago in the present and shot the film on location. The film also features an outstanding cast who craft fully-rounded characters who draw us in.

That is the premise for a terrific crime thriller, and most films would be satisfied with that. But on top of that thriller, WIDOWS explores the issues of widows left struggling after their husband’s death, issues of race and class, and of female empowerment. But even that is not enough for this outstanding film, which then adds in a political campaign between a young white politician (Colin Farrell), the son of a powerful, bullying Chicago political boss (Robert Duvall) in a tight aldermanic race with a black man, Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), the leader of another crime ring looking to expand his power into the political.

Veronica Rawlings (Viola Davis) knew her husband Harry (Liam Neeson) was involved in crime but knows nothing else about his business. She also knows nothing of their finances. At first, newly-widowed Veronica is the classic picture of a pampered wife shielded from the real world and practical matters by her protective husband . Flashbacks establish their loving relationship but now alone, Veronica’s grief and vulnerability are conveyed effectively by Davis, delicately clutching her little dog with a dazed, helpless expression. When her husband is killed, her world comes crashing down, flattened not just by her grief but the the jolt of finding she is nearly broke. On top of that, thugs are threatening her, demanding the 2 millions dollars her late husband stole from them, money burned up in the deadly shoot-out that killed him and his crew.

Desperate, Veronica hits on a plan to steal the money, with the help of the other widows of the men in her husband’s criminal team, using plans for a new heist her late husband left behind. When she reaches out the other widows, Veronica find they too are in financial difficulties. Linda (Michelle Rodriguez) is a Latina mother of two small children who discovers that the small shop she runs has been mortgaged by her late husband to loan sharks, who quickly take it all. Blonde-haired Alice (Elizabeth Debicki), a second generation Polish immigrant, was an abused wife under the thumb of her husband Florek (Jon Bernthal), a woman who believes her beauty is all she has to offer the world. Left penniless, her mother (Jackie Weaver) urges her daughter to take up work as a call girl, an idea the usually submissive Alice finds unsettling. The fourth member of the team is Belle (Cynthia Erivo), a hard-working single mother from the projects, who takes any and all jobs she can get, who was Linda’s babysitter and friend as well as a woman of remarkable resourcefulness.

Viola Davis is fabulous as the take-charge Veronica, a force unleashed by her personal tragedy, but all the cast get their chance to shine, creating memorable, distinctive characters who speak to the real world. Elizabeth Debicki may have found her break-out role as Alice, a woman who has an awakening to her own worth and intelligence. Cynthia Ervivo makes a strong screen debut and Rodriguez adds another strong role to her already considerable resume.

All of the characters are complex, and Liam Neeson gets one of his meatier, if small, parts of recent years. Likewise, Colin Farrell and the legendary Robert Duvall deliver compelling, nuanced work as Jack and Tom Mulligan, a father and son locked in a toxic relationship built around political power. Brian Tyree Henry plays the enigmatic Jamal Manning, Jack Mulligan’s African American political opponent for alderman of their majority-black ward, but a man from the same violent crime world as the late Harry Rawlings.

WIDOWS is a film that has it all – a smart script, driving crime thriller energy, memorable characters and something to say about the world we live in.

RATINGS: 5 out of 5 stars