Widows: Picking Up After Shitty Men

2018's Widows highlights the work women are forced to do in the wake up of awful men.

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Scott's Self-Indulgent Movie Podcast · Episode 1072: Widows: Picking Up After Shitty Men

2018's Widows could've been a very different movie. The premise is pretty simple. After their husbands die robbing a local crime boss, three women with no criminal experience work together to pull off a heist of their own to save and reclaim their lives. Considering the setup it's very easy to see this becoming a comedy with all three of our women bumbling through this intense situation. Or perhaps we turn this into a high octane thriller with a bunch of shootouts, explosions and fun for the inner 12 year old in all of us.

Instead Steve McQueen and company delivered a searing crime drama that touches on systemic inequality, grief, and most notably, three women paying for the sins of the men in their lives.

So instead of a standard review, long story short it's good, I'm going to dive into what I think the most compelling aspect of this movie is. Women picking up after shitty men.

So let's look at our three leads from the surface.

Veronica

Viola Davis' Veronica is the "respectable" member and ringleader of this little group. On the surface she has a nice life. Her apartment is immaculately decorated, she has an amicable driver, a dog that looks like it was purchased from a breeder and she holds a position in the local teacher's union. She also dresses the part with a lot of sharp blazers and a stoic demeanor.

And while she is intimidated by the threats on her life, she is quick to take action and rope in accomplices to the heist, seemingly unafraid to use blackmail as leverage to save her skin. In a cruel irony, she has to become like her deceased husband to survive his death.

Admittedly most of this is a smokescreen for an awful lot of hurt, but we'll get into that later. Next we have Michelle Rodriguez's Linda.

Linda

Rodriguez's Linda seems to have the most average existence of the trio. She owns a small shop, takes care of her kids, seems to have community, in a way the other members of this little heist do not. So when the trio needs to become a quartet, Linda is the one to bring someone in.

She also thought she had removed herself from her ex-husband Carlos and his life and has already spent time in prison (and is not looking to go back). A thought that's rudely refuted when the men who actually own the store show up and begin stripping it for money and parts.

Which means she really needs some form of money to prop her business back up so she can get back to normal with a legitimate foundation versus Carlos' shaky one. And then there's Alice.

Alice

Elizabeth Debicki's Alice starts off this movie in a very rough place. Her husband is the sole provider and blatantly abusive. But unlike Linda, who has community or Veronica who has information and people who can help her use it, Alice's only support is her mother...who seems to preach a message that put her in this situation in the first place.

Case in point, as soon as Alice ends up without a place to live, her mother suggests she find a sugar daddy for money. To put it simply, Alice has seemingly always been beholden to men and is primed to keep being beholden to men unless something changes.

So even if she has no idea what she's doing, Veronica's offer feels like a chance to start over and gain some independence.

And now we get into the messes the men have left in their wake.

Picking Up The Messes Men Left...And Evolving in the Process

The throughline for each our three leads is that they've been left in the wake of men who either didn't know or care what their decisions would mean for the women in their life, outside of being criminals.

Alice's husband Fiore, outside of being an abusive piece of shit, also never planned for the future. Nothing saved away. He and Alice spent whatever they had. Which might be ok if it's just the two of you and one or both of you have steady work, but Fiore was a violent criminal. There is no longevity in that. There's also hints that he kept her or encouraged her to be entirely reliant on him (does she even have a driver's license?), so she bumbles through an awful lot.

So without a nest egg or even a job to hold her steady, Alice is driven to sex work (out of necessity, not choice). 

And in spite of all of this, Alice quickly and correctly concludes that she deserves respect and begins to demand it. She rebukes Veronica for striking her and strikes her back. She chastises her mother's abusive behavior. She even shoots the man who shoots her during the heist. 

Alice begins this movie as a victim, but by the film's end she's independent and set to make her own way.

By comparison, Linda seemed to have it all figured out. She had a store, a working relationship with her ex-husband, and was making rent payments...at least she thought she was.

Because Oscar's last betrayal isn't just getting killed in another heist, it's leaving behind a pile of gambling debt that he leveraged against the store's rent. So through no fault of her own, outside of trusting her ex to do one thing he seemed capable of doing, she's back in the mess.

And not just any mess, a life she left behind.

The movie doesn't dwell on it too long, but Linda indicates that she spent time in prison, with the movie assuming you can put the pieces together (i.e. why she doesn't freak out more when she sees tattooed men raiding her store). She and Oscar met young. Likely did criminal stuff together. Linda and maybe Oscar both did time and she decided she couldn't do that anymore after being in prison and having kids.

Now she's back not only carrying out a heist because she's being blackmailed and her husband left debts behind as well. 

Finally there's Veronica.

Harry's Mess

This is all Harry's fault. All of it.

The big reveal in Widows is that unlike the other husbands, Harry didn't actually die. He set up his compatriots and killed them in an explosion as he walked away with his stolen money. Fully aware that his wife would be left to clean up his mess. He also created hell for the families of the deceased men, so Linda and Alice's situations, even if they end up better in the end, they were under pressure because of him.

But it goes so much deeper than that.

Not only did Harry abandon his wife, to a presumably violent death after his theft and apparent death, stealing from a gangster he had avoided for his entire career apparently, he was planning on leaving her with two mountains of grief while he started over.

In another tragic reveal, we learn that Veronica and Harry had a son: Marcus.

Marcus is no longer with us. Why? He was killed by police officers, specifically after Harry allowed him to go out driving with a flashy car, in a way that had Veronica worried. So while Veronica has soldiered on, Harry decided to craft an escape and has even impregnated another woman, the wife of another member of his crew.

He couldn't handle it so he decided to abandon Veronica with two mountains of grief and problems meant for him while he started over.

What's worse? Now Veronica, a straight-arrow from the looks of it, has to play Harry's part. She's the hard edge and mastermind of this plot. Handing out jobs. Using leverage. Never letting her guard down lest it be mistaken for weakness. She even strikes Alice when Alice goes outside of her instruction. And ends up becoming exactly like Harry. A thief and a killer.

But this is a facade. Something she's carrying out of necessity to survive. Because there's no time and room to grieve when you might get killed by a dead-eyed Daniel Kaluuya because of the mess your shithead husband left behind (whether he's alive or not).

Something that I find so clever is how the movie gives Veronica a handful of moments to let go. After finding out about Harry's betrayal and striking Alice, Alice strikes her back and finally Veronica crumbles. Becomes a wreck in Alice's arms. That all business demeanor all gone for a moment and then her shields are back up.

Until the film's final frame. After purging the ill-gotten money for a library wing in her son's name, Veronica does two things we haven't seen her do the whole movie, she calls out to Veronica (who by chance ended up at the same diner as her)..and she smiles.

There's a lot of ways to read this but I take it as she finally feels free. Free to connect. Free to emote. Free of the worst of Harry's world as the city has moved on without him. She's done picking up after her shitty man, hopefully forever.