Film: "Widows"
Viola Davis plans a daring heist in this live-wire thriller from director Steve McQueen and co-writer Gillian Flynn.
Director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) and co-screenwriter Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl) deliver marvelous, meaningful entertainment for our current #MeToo moment, endowing the classic planning-a-heist-film with real-world stakes and emotional resonance.
Viola Davis soars as Veronica, a Chicago union leader who has always turned a blind eye to her husband Rawlins’s (Liam Neeson) less legitimate business arrangements. But when his latest job goes fatally wrong, Veronica is forced to reckon with the legacy of crime closing in around her. Her only way out: recruit the other widows from her husband’s crew—Michelle Rodriguez, Cynthia Erivo and Elizabeth Debicki—to finish what the men started and pull off an audacious heist on their own terms.
As the women put all the elements of the robbery into place, McQueen takes the time to explore their heartache, determination and sisterhood. While the men the dire situation and quietly set about taking care of business. A powerful statement on the strength of women that also happens to be an explosive, live-wire thriller directed with wit and style, Widows is one of the year’s must-sees.
D: Steve McQueen, US, 2018, 2h8m
