Widows is a compelling mix of action blockbuster and serious Oscar contender. Photo / 20th Century Fox
Widows is a compelling mix of action blockbuster and serious Oscar contender. Photo / 20th Century Fox
Some movies are brilliant and some movies are brilliantly entertaining.
The brilliantly entertaining movies tend to give you a really enjoyable experience followed by a but; but the dialogue was cheesy, but some of the performances weren't great, but the plot fell apart.
It's rare to come across a film that is both brilliant and brilliantly entertaining.
Widows is that film — a compelling mix of action blockbuster and serious Oscar contender.
Directed by Steve McQueen and written by McQueen and Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, Widows is based on a popular 1980s British TV series by Lynda La Plante. That's some serious pedigree there.
Viola Davis leads a cast that includes Australian actor Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Liam Neeson, Daniel Kaluuya, Brian Tyree Henry and Robert Duvall.
Set in Chicago, Veronica Rawlins (Davis) is madly, passionately in love with her criminal husband Harry (Neeson). When Harry and his gang of thieves are killed during a botched heist, Veronica and the other men's widows find themselves left with nothing.
Even worse, the men who Harry stole from, Jamal Manning (Henry) and his brother Jatemme (Kaluuya), want their missing $2 million from Veronica, giving her a month to raise the impossible amount.
So it's up to Veronica and fellow widows Linda (Rodriguez) and Alice (Debicki) to pick up where their husbands left off. Despite knowing next-to-nothing about what's involved in stealing millions of dollars from a target they can't quite identify, they're perfect because no one expects them to pull it off, or even try it on.
Widows cast members Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Steve McQueen, Cynthia Erivo and Michelle Rodriguez attend a New York Special Screening of the movie. Photo / Getty Images
Watching Widows straight-up refute the notion that women are less than men, of seeing these women shatter those low expectations, is a triumph.
McQueen has proven himself a prodigious filmmaker with Hunger, Shame and the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave. He has crafted an extraordinary film that is wildly entertaining with thrilling car chases, explosions and tense heist sequences.
But it also has gravitas — you don't feel like you've watched just a popcorn movie, where, like the salty snacks, it's fun to consume at the time but ultimately unsatisfying.
McQueen was a successful visual artist before he turned to filmmaking and that background and flair always come across in his movies.
There's one particular scene in Widows that is breathtaking — Jack Mulligan (Farrell), a local politician in a bid for re-election who thinks nothing of dropping $50,000 on some art, gets in his fancy, chauffeured car outside a poor African-American neighbourhood.
The camera is mounted on the car, following the vehicle as it turns several blocks, the landscape of the background changing from rundown blocks of units and chain mail fencing to leafy suburbia.
All the while, there's dialogue between Jack and his campaign manager (Molly Kunz) looped over the top, which, coupled with the visuals, capture the racial and class divide and the institutions enabling such a corrupt system, of that district, of Chicago and of America.
It's a stunning sequence that says so much in two minutes — it's not heavy-handed but there is no mistaking its message.
As always, Davis' performance is fierce, confident and vulnerable — when Davis is hurting or raging, you feel it, her emotion jumps off the screen and reverberates.
The whole cast is on fine form — scene-stealing Debicki, Farrell, who continues to ride his career renaissance, Erivo, whose screen presence is undeniable and Kaluuya's unsettling standover gangster.
Widows is an absolute standout, a remarkable film from a master storyteller.
