Film

Steve McQueen's 'Widows' is a lesson in how to portray badass women in film

The 12 Years a Slave director's most mainstream offering yet sees a group of widows plan a massive robbery – and their gender means no one suspects a thing. It's the year's best thriller.

The female kick-assery going down in Hollywood at the moment is mostly deeply boring – films made with the reasoning that if you have a woman doing James Bond in heels it counts as feminism. Well it doesn’t.

Now, with a masterclass in how to get it right, here’s director Steve McQueen adapting Lynda La Plante’s 1983 TV drama into the year’s best thriller. Interestingly, McQueen has said he identified with the women on screen when he first saw the original on the telly aged 13 – it’s about a group of women who turn to a life of crime when their husbands get killed in a robbery. No one suspects them because, well, they’re women. As a young black kid McQueen was repeatedly told at school that he wouldn’t amount to much.

McQueen wrote the script with Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, whose fingerprints are all over this. With a detail here, a background scene there, the pair create characters – male and female – with fully realised lives you believe in. Transferring the action from London to Chicago, this 21st century Widows is about racism and politics as well as female rage – with a dynamite heist at the end.

Viola Davis is staggeringly good as Veronica, whose husband Harry (Liam Neeson in flashbacks) goes up in flames in a van with $2m of nicked cash and three other lags (the response of a cynical cop is worth noting: “I always said he should rot in hell, but Chicago will do”). The stolen cash belongs to a drug dealer, Jamal (Brian Tyree Henry), who comes knocking at Veronica’s door when she is in the slow, stupefied stage of grief. Jamal needs the money back to bankroll his campaign for office in local politics (where the real money is – a subplot straight out of The Wire). Jamal gives Veronica a month to stump up the dosh, or he’ll unleash his psychopathic brother Jatemme (Daniel Kaluuya).

None of the women have committed a major crime before… but like a storm gathering they have power

When Veronica finds Harry’s notebook (he was an old-school pen and paper guy) with details of a job he was planning, she recruits the widows of her husband’s dead crook pals to pull it off. There’s Michelle Rodriguez as Linda, flat-broke with two kids after her husband gambled away the profits of her clothes shop. Elizabeth Debicki (who stole the show from Tom Hiddleston in The Night Manager) is Alice, a dumb trashy blonde. Or so everyone thinks. A third woman, hairdresser Belle (Cynthia Erivo) joins them later. None of the women, Veronica included, have committed a major crime before. They are terrified, but like a storm gathering they have power.

This is the 12 Years a Slave director’s most mainstream offering yet. What makes a McQueen film so distinctive is that he does everything for real. There’s nothing fake or polite about his style – he doesn’t look away however ugly it gets. So, when a female character get smacked in the face here, it looks like she’s been smacked in the face – there’s a split-second of shock as she registers what’s just happened. Grief in Widows is messy. So too is love; the film opens with Davis and Neeson in bed kissing, full-on with tongues and saliva (it’s depressing that in 2018 interracial couples are still so rare on screen that you notice them).

The original Widows was a six-parter (though there was a second season in 1985). My only beef with this film, is that with its novel-like lived-in characters, style, passion and purpose, it couldn’t be longer.

★★★★☆

Widows is in cinemas from November 9

Support the Big Issue

For over 30 years, the Big Issue has been committed to ending poverty in the UK. In 2024, our work is needed more than ever. Find out how you can support the Big Issue today.
Vendor martin Hawes

Recommended for you

View all
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire review – a heartfelt and 'nostalgia-tickling' sequel
Ernie Hudson and Bill Murray in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
Film

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire review – a heartfelt and 'nostalgia-tickling' sequel

The Beautiful Game: Everything you need to know about Netflix's new Homeless World Cup film
Colin Farrell with the Scottish team, holding a football
Homeless World Cup

The Beautiful Game: Everything you need to know about Netflix's new Homeless World Cup film

Robot Dreams director Pablo Berger on grief, loss and the Oscars underdog winning hearts everywhere
Dog is baffled by the assembly instructions for his new robot pal in Robot Dreams
Film

Robot Dreams director Pablo Berger on grief, loss and the Oscars underdog winning hearts everywhere

Cate Blanchett on religion, powerful drama The New Boy and why politics is 'incredibly shameless'
Film

Cate Blanchett on religion, powerful drama The New Boy and why politics is 'incredibly shameless'

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Here's when UK households to start receiving last cost of living payments
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Here's when UK households to start receiving last cost of living payments

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know
4.

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know