Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

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bainbridgezu
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Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#1 Post by bainbridgezu » Mon Jun 04, 2018 9:34 am


flyonthewall2983
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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#2 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Mon Jun 04, 2018 7:29 pm

I must have watched that four times today. Have to admit there wasn't anything I was particularly excited about coming in theaters until now.

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Lost Highway
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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#3 Post by Lost Highway » Tue Jun 05, 2018 3:38 am

I still can't get my head round that McQueen is doing a remake of this cozy British crime show, which as one of the first things I watched after moving to the UK. I wished they'd kept the 80s hair. At least it will have to be better than Shame, which was the most ludicrous film of 2011.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widows_(TV_series)

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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#4 Post by Werewolf by Night » Tue Jun 05, 2018 12:07 pm

After Shame, McQueen is not a filmmaker whose work I'm terribly interested in keeping up with, and this trailer has too much of a "sisters are doin' it for themselves," long-suffering women cleaning up the messes of their feckless husbands vibe. Like we're still stuck in that '80s-'90s frame of strong female characters in action movies being women who act like men in action movies. But it's got Daniel Kaluuya and Brian Tyree Henry in it, so I'll happily watch it when it shows up on FX in a couple of years.

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Luke M
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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#5 Post by Luke M » Tue Jun 05, 2018 12:19 pm

If Viola Davis wasn’t in this I’d completely dismiss it but as it is looks like a MoviePass movie.

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domino harvey
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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#6 Post by domino harvey » Wed Jun 06, 2018 5:06 pm

Why is this being talked about as an awards player, it looks like a mainstream action thriller?

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knives
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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#7 Post by knives » Wed Jun 06, 2018 5:06 pm

The director.

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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#8 Post by DarkImbecile » Wed Aug 15, 2018 12:03 pm


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domino harvey
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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#9 Post by domino harvey » Tue Sep 11, 2018 11:50 am

Positive response out of TIFF-- Daniel Kaluuya apparently steals the movie with a very small villain role that could find him getting nommed ala William Hurt for A History of Violence

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Monterey Jack
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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#10 Post by Monterey Jack » Thu Sep 13, 2018 10:02 pm

Hopefully this will be the first McQueen movie that isn't such an grueling endurance test I could imagine sitting through it a second time. Great filmmaker, but damn, are his movies hard to sit through. A mainstream, pulpy thriller from him entices me greatly.

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Big Ben
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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#11 Post by Big Ben » Sat Nov 17, 2018 7:53 pm

I really liked this and I think it's a shoo in for an Award Season contendor.

It is, first and foremost the most commerical film McQueen has made though and at some level that's what it is but it's made so well it really doesn't make much of a difference. It's a very concise film about women have put in a very bad place by men and how they take action against it. Viola Davis will certainly be a player come awards time but I'm hoping Daniel Kaluuya gets a supporting nod too. He plays a sort Anton Chigurgh esque figure whose actions are strictly business driven but are given enough chilling personality that it sets him apart from other henchman. No one in this film is really morally perfect but it's quite evident where McQueen's sympathies lie.

The film has a clear political undertone as well:
SpoilerShow
A rather Antonioni-esque sequence shows Colin Ferrell entering a car making rather loaded statements. The kick here is we only see the right side of the car's hood. As the conversation progresses the camera pans to the right, revealing the driver of the car to be black. It's a very deliberate shot and it's a great way to make what could have been an ordinary scene more meaningful. It's similar to how the camera pans away from Bickle's painful phone call in Taxi Driver.

A sequence involving the death of Viola Davis' son is also immaculate. A shot of his almost empty room in the present shows a partially obscured portrait of Malcolm X. Cut to the past where Obama's "Hope" poster is plastered across a Chicago wall. Cut to a young black man being murdered by police because he reaches for his phone.
Also a shout out to the woman behind me who as the credits began to role exclaimed "Directed by THAT Steve McQueen?"

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Brian C
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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#12 Post by Brian C » Sun Nov 18, 2018 12:05 am

I liked this a lot too. It's a lot more interesting than the trailers let on, and somehow I missed that this is a Chicago movie, so that was fun. But I liked the way the movie contextualized the film's central heist within the machine politics that the city is famous for. I can't say that I really bought it on a realistic level, but it works well enough on a spiritual level that I was on board anyway.

I did think the ending was a bit of a letdown, although
SpoilerShow
I suppose I can't fault a studio production like this for wrapping the plot up in a nice little bow. Still, it's disappointing, because the film had a lot of balls in the air, and I couldn't help but feel like it brought them all together a little too neatly. There was a moment when the film tries to fake you out into thinking that Neeson's character shot Davis's, and that would have really shot the movie off into unexpected and surprising directions, but obviously that doesn't actually happen.

And I also think that, from a structural standpoint, the film leaves Farrell's character hanging. He was one of the more interesting characters in the movie, trying to live down a political legacy that he doesn't want but at the same time he shows streaks of both true-believer idealism and complete amorality. Having him win his election because of his father's killing is a nice irony, but it's not enough to resolve that character's arc. I think the film needed a coda with him that gives some idea of what aspects of his character might win out.
I also can't say that I share the praise I'm seeing for Kaluuya. His character was pretty one-note, which is to look menacing. Nothing we haven't seen from a million henchmen before, and I think the film makes a storytelling mistake to focus on him at the expense of Brian Tyree Henry's character, who was both more important and more interesting. Among the principal cast, I was most impressed with Debicki, who along with Farrell is given a lot to do in terms of emotional shading. Davis just kinda does her Viola Davis thing, which works with this character but at the same time, it's very familiar at this point.

But, it was not my intention to spend so much time knocking the film, because I really did enjoy it. I agree with Big Ben above that the shot in the car is a fine moment, and the actual heist itself is as good as Melville or Mann could have done. And I think that the film gets the feel of Chicago surprisingly right, even though I'm baffled that the big political scandal has to do with extending the Green Line - as if there are bribes big enough to get the CTA to do that!

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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#13 Post by bad future » Sun Nov 18, 2018 3:25 am

Big Ben wrote:
Sat Nov 17, 2018 7:53 pm
SpoilerShow
A rather Antonioni-esque sequence shows Colin Ferrell entering a car making rather loaded statements. The kick here is we only see the right side of the car's hood. As the conversation progresses the camera pans to the right, revealing the driver of the car to be black. It's a very deliberate shot and it's a great way to make what could have been an ordinary scene more meaningful. It's similar to how the camera pans away from Bickle's painful phone call in Taxi Driver.
SpoilerShow
This may go without saying, but another major aspect of that sequence seemed to be the way the city transforms in the background within the span of that single unbroken conversation, from the relatively dilapidated area where Farrell is making his appeal to voters to his own posh residence. Such a great use of the city.

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Monterey Jack
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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#14 Post by Monterey Jack » Sun Nov 18, 2018 11:10 pm

bad future wrote:
Sun Nov 18, 2018 3:25 am
SpoilerShow
This may go without saying, but another major aspect of that sequence seemed to be the way the city transforms in the background within the span of that single unbroken conversation, from the relatively dilapidated area where Farrell is making his appeal to voters to his own posh residence. Such a great use of the city.
I, too, thought that was a great bit of visual shorthand.

I found this film to be tense and absorbing (and very well-acted), but it glanced off true greatness by a hair mainly due to the very well-worn genre conventions it was utilizing. Still, it's always a treat when a legit auteur like McQueen rolls their sleeves up and dives into a piece of well-constructed mainstream pulp, like Spike Lee did so well with Inside Man.

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domino harvey
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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#15 Post by domino harvey » Sun Nov 18, 2018 11:19 pm

Big Ben wrote:
Sat Nov 17, 2018 7:53 pm
Also a shout out to the woman behind me who as the credits began to role exclaimed "Directed by THAT Steve McQueen?"
Did she mean the actor? I can't imagine that many people know who McQueen is but not also know he directed this

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Big Ben
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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#16 Post by Big Ben » Sun Nov 18, 2018 11:24 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Sun Nov 18, 2018 11:19 pm
Big Ben wrote:
Sat Nov 17, 2018 7:53 pm
Also a shout out to the woman behind me who as the credits began to role exclaimed "Directed by THAT Steve McQueen?"
Did she mean the actor? I can't imagine that many people know who McQueen is but not also know he directed this
It was an older couple maybe in their mid seventies so yes.

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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#17 Post by ShempTCat » Mon Nov 19, 2018 2:01 pm

bad future wrote:
Sun Nov 18, 2018 3:25 am
Big Ben wrote:
Sat Nov 17, 2018 7:53 pm
SpoilerShow
A rather Antonioni-esque sequence shows Colin Ferrell entering a car making rather loaded statements. The kick here is we only see the right side of the car's hood. As the conversation progresses the camera pans to the right, revealing the driver of the car to be black. It's a very deliberate shot and it's a great way to make what could have been an ordinary scene more meaningful. It's similar to how the camera pans away from Bickle's painful phone call in Taxi Driver.
SpoilerShow
This may go without saying, but another major aspect of that sequence seemed to be the way the city transforms in the background within the span of that single unbroken conversation, from the relatively dilapidated area where Farrell is making his appeal to voters to his own posh residence. Such a great use of the city.
This scene seems to be one of many that highlight the power of transportation or the need of transportation.
Other instances of transportation in the film include:
SpoilerShow
• Jack Mulligan is running his campaign on the creation of a tramline for the 18th Ward which will bring employees and customers to the ward’s small businesses.
• The Widows need a vehicle to pull off their heist.
• Alice Gunner is unable to drive (however, at the end of the film we see her go to the driver side of a car indicating she now not only can drive but also owns a car).
• Alice gives away her deceased husband’s motorcycle for free because she didn’t understand the value of transportation.
• David asks Alice to fly overseas with him on a trip; she declines stating that unlike him, she cannot drop everything in her life to travel
• Belle is a fast runner & knows the bus schedule because she does not own a car, nor can she afford a taxi (like Alice, the final time we see Belle she is behind the wheel of a car indicating she now owns a car).
• Veronica has a personal driver (Basher) but cannot afford to pay him and thus gives him her car.
• Harry kills his gang by blowing them up in a van.
• Harry’s mistress, Amanda, was the wife of the driver in Harry’s gang.
• Jatemme Manning was killed in a car crash.
• Belle distracts the security outside Jack’s house by vandalizing his neighbor’s expensive cars & causing their alarms to go off (the alarms signify not only ownership but ownership of something valuable).
• Veronica’s son is shot by the cops while he was sitting in a car. He is only pulled over by the cops because of a U-Turn. He only made a U-Turn because he was borrowed his father’s car and the father needed it back.
• Bobby, the bar owner, is stuck in a wheelchair; Jatemme terrorizes him by knocking him out of his chair and kicking it out of his reach.

I’m sure there are other instances throughout the movie I’ve missed.

I’m not sure what all of this is supposed to mean, maybe something about the difficulty of upward mobility?

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Boosmahn
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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#18 Post by Boosmahn » Fri Nov 30, 2018 8:59 am

Monterey Jack wrote:
Thu Sep 13, 2018 10:02 pm
Hopefully this will be the first McQueen movie that isn't such an grueling endurance test I could imagine sitting through it a second time. Great filmmaker, but damn, are his movies hard to sit through.
I found my second viewing of Hunger to be much more "enjoyable" (as fun as that movie can be to watch).

Widows was good, I guess. The best way I can describe it is as a heist thriller tinged with political themes.

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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#19 Post by Mr Sheldrake » Fri Nov 30, 2018 9:55 am

I thought the ensemble cast was often terrific especially the scenes with Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall. But I'm astonished that it is considered a well crafted movie in most reviews. I found every aspect of the screenplay to be ridiculous, the motivations weak or non-existent, especially uncomfortable in how the audience is manipulated to root for these ordinary women in their quick and easy transformation into armed robbers as an emblem of female empowerment.
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and there is no chance they would have gotten away with it, they would have been quickly arrested given the gunshot wound and Viola Davis beforehand casing the site so conspicuously

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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#20 Post by aox » Fri Nov 30, 2018 10:18 am

Was 12 Years a Slave not well received on this forum? I haven't seen Shame, but I enjoyed 12aS and Hunger.

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hearthesilence
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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#21 Post by hearthesilence » Fri Nov 30, 2018 11:18 am

aox wrote:
Fri Nov 30, 2018 10:18 am
Was 12 Years a Slave not well received on this forum? I haven't seen Shame, but I enjoyed 12aS and Hunger.
I haven't looked at that thread since, but there were quite a few dismissals. I liked it though, I posted about it and thought it was very good, Hunger as well. I have some reservations with Shame, particularly towards the end, but I still liked it, especially for Fassbender's performance.

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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#22 Post by ianthemovie » Fri Nov 30, 2018 6:50 pm

Is there a thread for Shame? I remember liking it quite a bit when I saw it in theaters, especially Fassbender and Mulligan, but I know some critics really reviled it. Anthony Lane's derisive review sticks out, and recently Michael Koresky called it the worst movie of the decade.

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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#23 Post by swo17 » Fri Nov 30, 2018 6:52 pm


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Swift
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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#24 Post by Swift » Sun Jan 06, 2019 1:32 am

Mr Sheldrake wrote:
Fri Nov 30, 2018 9:55 am
SpoilerShow
and there is no chance they would have gotten away with it, they would have been quickly arrested given the gunshot wound and Viola Davis beforehand casing the site so conspicuously
Agreed on the latter. I initially thought the same for the former, but doesn't Chicago get a shit ton of shootings every night? I'm assuming they don't all get investigated very thoroughly (or at least I'm giving the film the benefit of the doubt here)

I thought this was a really well made solid crime thriller like an earlier poster, I was left wishing that more auteur types dipped their feet in genre pics more often.

This part could go in the movie theatre experiences thread but our viewing was populated by about 90% old couples so there was quite a bit of explaining going on. The lady behind didn't seem to have seen many of this type of film because she completely bought that
SpoilerShow
Neeson shot his wife until it was revealed that it was the other way around which should have been obvious to most people I would've imagined
and was relieved at the reveal. Actually that scene also got loud applause from someone which then got a bunch of laughs. Kinda weird.

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TMDaines
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Re: Widows (Steve McQueen, 2018)

#25 Post by TMDaines » Fri Mar 08, 2019 8:27 pm

This was a bit meh. Some interesting shots, some good performances, but not a strong script at all. The film is frankly dull at times.

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