Movie Review: It’s Robbin’ Season in "Widows"

Viola Davis gets away with more than murder in Steve McQueen’s latest effort.

Widows pulled off the heist of the century when it ingeniously cast Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez and Cynthia Erivo as a quartet of armed and dangerous burglars.

Job done. Everyone back in the van, we’re off to count the metaphorical millions.

However, Widows doesn’t quit there. Liam Neeson, Daniel Kaluuya, Brian Tyree Henry, Colin Farrell, Jacki Weaver, Carrie Coon, Robert Duvall and Garrett Dillahunt also turn up in roles of various sizes too. Their added presence, to put it in the parlance of the times, is a flex.

Given director Steve McQueen’s appreciation for a locked-off shot, he could have just trained his camera on this lot eating lunch for two hours, sent the unbroken single take to cinemas and driven straight to the SAG Awards to watch them all collect the prize for Best Ensemble.

But, helpfully, he made an actual movie instead, adapting Lynda La Plante’s BBC miniseries of the same name with author and screenwriter Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl, Sharp Objects). It’s cracking.

Davis, Debicki, Rodriguez and Coon play the titular widows: Veronica, Alice, Linda and Amanda. Their husbands, a crew of Chicago thieves, are wiped out in the nerve-jangling opening sequence after a job goes way wrong. They tried to steal $2 million from the Manning mob, led by Jamal (Henry) and his merciless enforcer Jatemme (Kaluuya, the scene-stealingest performer of all). And they almost got away with it, until the money burnt up along with the criminal hubbies in a hail of police gunfire.

Now, the Mannings want the money returned, to fund their campaign against a family of blue-blooded politicians (Farrell, Duvall) in a local election. So, they insist Veronica—a former teacher—find a way to pay them back. Armed only with a notebook outlining future scores left by her husband Harry (Neeson), she recruits the other ill-prepared wives for a robbery, except Amanda, who is raising a four-month-old baby solo and is subbed out for Linda’s babysitter, Belle (Erivo). The team is in place, though this ain’t Ocean’s 8. Veronica tells the fragile Alice to get them some guns, and when she asks how, Veronica replies curtly, "It’s America." Awkwafina’s witty asides can’t save you now, ladies.

At surface level, Widows is absolutely captivating and rollicking good, bloody, bleak fun, with everyone in the cast—and sprawled across the crowded poster—bringing their A-game. (Do you want to be the sore thumb who phones-in Widows?) But this isn’t the ‘Acting Olympics’. Many of the performers—specifically, the central four—are excellent and understated. As the real reasons for their willingness to break the law emerge, their characters grow fully formed. In male-dominated heist flicks, the heroes are usually just after cash. In this feminist subversion of the genre, the women just want something they can call their own: even, or especially, if it’s stolen.

McQueen and Flynn throw in some commentary on life in Chicago; for African American men, Polish immigrants, Irish politicians and minority female business-owners. It coheres well enough, miraculously, though Widows shouldn’t have been seeking more meat to add to its already toppling plate. There are times when you wish McQueen would just commit to the task at hand and make a solid heist picture. (He has admitted to using the genre to smuggle in some 'socially conscious' veggies for the audience to chew on.) Thankfully, McQueen’s reach does not exceed his grasp.

Widows is merely book-ended by robberies, yet there are plenty of thrilling and cinematically audacious centrepieces throughout. Most feature Kaluuya, who elicits a shiver of terror every time he arrives on screen to interrogate some soon-to-be-dead soul. It may be sacrilegious—or lèse-majesté—to say this about anything with Viola Davis, but Kaluuya robs the film right out from under her and everyone else.

4/5

In Australian cinemas 22 November. Rated MA15+ for strong violence, sex scene and coarse language.