← Back to Reviews
in
Widows (2018) https://letterboxd.com/smudgeefc1985/film/widows-2018/
How can this film possibly fail with a director, writers and cast this good? Short answer, it can't.
First off, I think the trailer sells it short, portraying it as some kind of all girl action heist. It is so much deeper than that, from the circumstances that throw these women together in the first place, to the twisty turny thread that ties everything together.
There is so much going on here. To say it's a film about a grouo of widows pulled together to pull off a heist after their criminal husbands die after a botched job, leaving their wives with the debt...that isn't half the story. Politics, race, gender, gun crime, police, sex work, corruption, betrayal, revenge, it's got so much going on, it's a wonder it all fits in. But fit in it does, and all playing it's part in the twisted narrative. There were a couple of scenes early on that I wondered why they were there, as they seemed inconsequential. But everything in this film is there for a reason, another thread, another strand.
Technically, it is so well put together too. There are some truly brilliant sequences and shots in this (most notably that whole opening scene, and a brilliantly weird scene that follows Colin Farrell's politician character on a short drive home after an appearance that rams home more about his character than 2 hours of dialogue could.) It's a very cleverly done knockout of a thriller.
How can this film possibly fail with a director, writers and cast this good? Short answer, it can't.
First off, I think the trailer sells it short, portraying it as some kind of all girl action heist. It is so much deeper than that, from the circumstances that throw these women together in the first place, to the twisty turny thread that ties everything together.
There is so much going on here. To say it's a film about a grouo of widows pulled together to pull off a heist after their criminal husbands die after a botched job, leaving their wives with the debt...that isn't half the story. Politics, race, gender, gun crime, police, sex work, corruption, betrayal, revenge, it's got so much going on, it's a wonder it all fits in. But fit in it does, and all playing it's part in the twisted narrative. There were a couple of scenes early on that I wondered why they were there, as they seemed inconsequential. But everything in this film is there for a reason, another thread, another strand.
Technically, it is so well put together too. There are some truly brilliant sequences and shots in this (most notably that whole opening scene, and a brilliantly weird scene that follows Colin Farrell's politician character on a short drive home after an appearance that rams home more about his character than 2 hours of dialogue could.) It's a very cleverly done knockout of a thriller.