Widows | Film Review

Hey Guys x

I think I first heard about this film sometime in February. I had been watching '12 Years A Slave' and went online to see what else the director, Steve McQueen, was working on. I saw this upcoming film, read the plot, and mentally made a note of it. So when it finally came around, I was so excited to finally see it.

Four men pull off a heist. Just when they think that they're safe, they are killed in a shootout with the police. However, when they die, they lose the 2 million dollars that they had stolen. With the men dead, this debt falls to their wives, who have a month to find the money, or risk losing their lives. So, headed by Veronica Rawlins (Viola Davis) these women seek to repay the debt - by pulling off Veronica's husband's next heist. But will everything go according to plan? And if it doesn't, can the women find a way to save themselves before it's too late?

This is an incredible film, with an incredible script written by Steve McQueen and Gillian Flynn, directed incredibly by Steve McQueen, complete with a truly incredible cast. There's no other word for it.

The first thing that strikes you is the opening scene. It is one of the most powerful, heart-pounding, exciting opening scenes of a movie that I've ever seen. A lot of that has to do with the sound, and the camera placement, but even the way that it was written was perfect. The juxtaposition of a completely docile scene undercut with something so action-packed pulls the audience right into the film even though they don't know these characters and have no idea what's going on.

But let's go back to the sound and camera placement. Sound, rather than a soundtrack, is something that is easy to miss when you're watching a film, and it's something that doesn't really get spoken about unless we're talking about the sound-specific categories at the Oscars. But in this film, sound is something that you can't get away from. There are so many moments where loud, unexpected sounds take the audience by surprise; sounds that would make you jump even if you knew they were coming. These sounds kept the audience on the edge of their seats, and seemed to emulate gunshots, which are a huge part of the story itself. It was so intelligently done that you find yourself waiting for the next jump, in the same way that you might be waiting for the next big event in the film to occur. You can never quite relax, and that's perfect for a film like this, because none of these characters are able to relax either.

And then the camera placement, again something that you probably don't notice unless you're a film fan and are actively intrigued about it. You as the audience are put right inside cars, you're put directly in front of flying bullets, you're injected into private conversations that you'd rather not be listening in on. The camera puts you directly at the centre of every moment and expertly holds you there until the credits roll.

This film is extremely plot driven. The plot is the thing that gets people into the cinema, the plot of the original series that this is based on is what made someone decide to turn it into a movie. It has an amazing hook, and just reading the description is intriguing enough to make you want to see it. But the thing that makes it as amazing when you eventually walk out of the cinema, is the fact that it is driven by a strong plot, but held together by strong characters. These characters aren't black-and-white, they're not all good or all bad. Every single character has so many layers that you don't know who you can trust. We even hold our main characters at arms length because none of them come across as the typical heroine.

While these characters are amazingly well-written, it has to be taken into account that this film has an astounding cast. Just some of the greats include Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Daniel Kaluuya, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall, and, of course, Liam Neeson. It's an amazing feat when a film's cast is full of well-known actors, but you can tell that they were chosen for their unique abilities, rather than the monetary gain that their name brings during promotion. They were all perfect in their roles, so perfect that no one else could have played them. They all completely owned these characters.

Overall, this is without a doubt one of the best movies of 2018, and as many people need to see it as possible!

9/10 stars!

Lou