The problem with hype is that you don’t even know what your expectations are going into a film. Unfortunately, I definitely had hype going into see Widows and it may have set things off-kilter for me. I was extremely excited for it from the get-go, Steve McQueen is one of my favorite directors and each of his previous films have shook me to my core. So on some level I imagined he’d transfer those visceral abilities into the heist genre. Then, lots of trusted friends highly highly recommended it - saying it was their favorite film of the year! Not to mention, god help me, the reviews I ended up letting myself read. I guess I was expecting at least a slight reinvention of the drama and something powerful and new otherwise - with such an insanely fantastic cast. But at the end of the day, I must’ve had more amorphous expectations than that because I found myself steadily disappointed as the movie rolled on. Yet, I’m pretty sure it was a good movie? Perhaps this is less movie review, more self review.
Or maybe, it just came down to the writing. Lots of characters had completely open endings, their arcs barely touched upon - and in fact left with far bigger questions than we started them with… one of them murders a man, another we just have no idea what her new life looks like… and the biggest loose end of them all (SPOILERS): the crime syndicate that was putting all the pressure on the Widows in the first place? Are they just gone now? Did they pay them off? There’s a lot of vital context we’re never given in the last 20 minutes of the film.
Okay here’s the whiny fanboy reason I didn’t love it - the heist itself. I mean, we spend literally 2 hours building to a heist and it absolutely under-delivered. It was a very very simple house/safe robbery that ended in about 2 minutes with minimal trickery, action, twists… If this film were truly a drama, that cared about its characters on a level so as to steep us in their POV — hell, I wouldn’t care about the heist. But unfortunately the film’s balance was off, and though there was some juicy character stuff, it really did make us focus on the heist for a long time. For example, I’d say the film spent 25-40 minutes focused entirely on the heist: where they get the info, casing the place, getting guns, etc. Yes, there are some entertaining character moments here but the point of these scenes comes off as: they are getting closer. Not, they are totally transforming.
So, it left me with this sense that the film wanted to be cross-genre, maybe wanted to be the thing I wildly hoped it would be — but it wasn’t. Things I did absolutely love, lest I be considered a total sourpuss: Daniel Kaluuya - brilliant, psychopathic gang leader. Robert Duvall - any chance to see him back in full action is fucking awesome. Viola Davis and Cynthia Erivo - they could hold the whole film down just the two of ‘em. The themes of the film were rich, though not always totally fleshed out — questions of how one can fight the racist tides of America / change a neighborhood, whether through any means necessary or a new path. They’re good questions, but sometimes the weight of forcing the audience to ask these questions isn’t backed up by the work done in the film itself. I don’t know… merits a re-watch to be sure. Maybe the hype killed it for me on the first round…. But, I came here to test out my criticisms here in writing them out and they feel valid under scrutiny. Kill the hype next time!