'Widows' Is a Hyperbolic Machine of Big Names and Cheap Thrills

Widows film poster.

Widows failed to truly understand and convey the racial turmoil in the gritty parts of Chicago. The weak script-- a joint effort by director Steve McQueen and Gillian Flynn's adaptation of Lynda La Plante's novel-- suffered to stand ground. It relies heavily on media perceptions of black trauma and sugarcoats political strife, but doesn't penetrate inside the underbelly of the problem.

Jamal (Brian Tyree Henry) threatens Veronica (Viola Davis) and her little dog too. 

First of all, the heist plotline didn't adhere in a seamless execution . Jack Mullins is running against Jamal Manning. Contractor thief Harry and his pals have been burned alive with Jamal's two million dollars. Jamal barges inside Veronica's penthouse, threatens her dog-- a dog that she often carries around like a rich white socialite-- and demands she give him that money. Veronica is left Harry's crime book and utilizes this to involve the other widows.

Now Widows deliberately celebrates white desirability in ways that could mentally harm and damage a black psyche. Alice, the youngest, calls Veronica a bitch and a cunt and even slaps her. Meanwhile, Alice's mother is ten times worse. She doesn't undermine her mother face to face. However, she treats a complete black woman stranger like the enemy. She is supposedly too broken and shattered, a woman treated objectively. Yet it is this black woman that she can fully launch unrepressed venom and hatred.

Too little, too late: Veronica (Viola Davis) seems to live for white compassion, i.e. Alice (Elizabeth Debicki). 

Veronica and Harry seem to have the perfect life-- her being a teacher and him being a criminal and all-- but it turns out to be terrible fiction. They play up the background Nina Simone ballad reminding the audience that this sultry magnificent singer with prominent African features and dark ruddy skin had also married a white man. Harry and Veronica's teenage son dies in a twisted, unbelievable cop narrative that just harms true American reality. This catalyst drives them apart, leaving Harry to cheat and make a white on white baby. At the end of the day, white was right and safe for Harry. To worsen matters, backstabbing Harry-- who turns out to be alive and well-- is quick to point a gun at Veronica after she pulls off a finicky heist with Harry's own handwritten instructions. A real win for the interracial love marketing team.

Thus, the black women depictions were not kind, lacking genuine tenderness and care. Belle is introduced to Veronica as the driver. They attack each other without reason. The only scene they are alone together, the two women have no dialogue. As if McQueen's camera artfully focusing on their gazes at one another is enough. Well, it's not. It's lazy. In one unnecessary scene, the slender, muscled Belle beats a punching bag like she's Rocky. Again, she's just the driver. Yet also a single mother, she spends more time with Linda's kids than her own-- an indentured servant role, the black mother nursing white babies, or in Belle's case Latinos. She barely shows affection to her daughter. Whereas, Veronica, the older woman, mother hens everyone. Other than distracting flashbacks with Harry, she has no purpose beyond obtaining Jamal's money. 

Veronica (Viola Davis) leads the three: Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), Belle (Cynthia Erivo), and Alice (Elizabeth Debicki).

The casting decisions were not the best. Viola Davis-- astounding in the degrees of acting proficiency-- could not rescue this tangled web that hurts more than it helps. Whereas Elizabeth Debicki is bad and difficult to watch, Michelle Rodriquez's Linda is severely underdeveloped. Cynthia Erivo is thrown in rather late in the film. As a whole, these actors (a majority of overseas talent) were not believable Chicagoans. Despite McQueen's avante garde camera angles, Widows was not the film in which one could be creative and thought-provoking due to the terrible script.

Widows is especially insensitive to the needs of black women film viewers, demonstrating by story and imagery a glaring disrespect that is calculative and deceitful. This painful illustration is not at all as intelligent as the trailer disguises itself to be. 

Other than that, Adepero Oduye deserves better than this.