Steve McQueen returns with a heist film Widows starring Viola Davis and Michelle Rodriguez.
Ocean’s 8 may be the bigger, more commercial project, but Steve McQueen’s Widows looks like the real deal. McQueen (the Academy Award-winning director of 12 Years a Slave) is directing a film after five years and the trailer is excellent. If you looked roughly at the premise, both Ocean’s 8 and Widows have women indulging in robbery/heist. But this is where the similarity ends. Widows, written by McQueen and Gone Girl writer Gillian Flynn, is quite dark as opposed to Ocean’s 8’s light, comedic tone, and frankly looks more compelling.
Widows follows four women whose husbands are criminals. After a failed robbery, the husbands are killed and their wives are left with debt. “Our husbands aren’t coming back,” says Viola Davis’ Veronica Rawlins, “We’re on our own. Her husband Mr Rawlins (Liam Neeson) is one of the dead robbers. These women have to pull off a heist when other criminals are pressurising them for their dead husbands’ debts and the law enforcement is keeping eye on their every activity.
The trailer is intense and set to Junior Boys’ cover of Billie Holidays’ iconic song Yesterdays. Steve McQueen has not done anything remotely like this, but so far it looks like he is doing a fine job. This would also be the most commercial film he has done yet.
Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Garret Dillahunt, Carrie Coon, Jacki Weaver, Jon Bernthal, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Robert Duvall also star in Widows apart from Viola Davis and Liam Neeson. Viola, Michelle, Elizabeth, and Cynthia play the four widows.
Here is the official synopsis, “From Academy Award®-winning director Steve McQueen (“12 Years a Slave”) and co-writer and bestselling author Gillian Flynn (“Gone Girl”) comes a blistering, modern-day thriller set against the backdrop of crime, passion and corruption. “Widows” is the story of four women with nothing in common except a debt left behind by their dead husbands’ criminal activities. Set in contemporary Chicago, amid a time of turmoil, tensions build when Veronica (Oscar® winner Viola Davis), Alice (Elizabeth Debicki), Linda (Michelle Rodriguez) and Belle (Cynthia Erivo) take their fate into their own hands and conspire to forge a future on their own terms. “Widows” also stars Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall, Daniel Kaluuya, Lukas Haas and Brian Tyree Henry.”
Widows will release on November 18 this year.