If you’re looking for a curious combination of filmmaker and subject matter at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, look no further than Steve McQueen’s “Widows,” which had its world premiere at the festival on Saturday.
McQueen, best known for the 2013 Oscar Best Picture winner “12 Years a Slave,” is an exacting British artist and film director drawn to obsession and control. He’s made films about slavery, the Irish hunger strike in a British prison (“Hunger”) and sex addiction (“Shame”).
But “Widows” is a heist movie, based on a British miniseries about four women who plot and pull off a robbery after their husbands are killed attempting another job.
Heist movies, one would think, need to have a little fun in them, and McQueen is not a man who puts much fun into his movies. From the evidence of his filmography, he is enthralled by the extremes of human behavior and uncompromising in the way he documents those extremes.
And while “Widows” can be powerful and dramatic, the director doesn’t seem all that interested in the complicated heist that is theoretically driving the plot. This isn’t Steven Soderbergh delighting in the intricacies of the vault break-in in “Ocean’s Eleven”; McQueen is far more interested in how desperate these people are and in the level of corruption and despair that has led them here.
That’s a reasonable thing for McQueen to be interested in, of course, especially when he’s exploring it with the help of a powerhouse cast headed by Viola Davis and also including Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Liam Neeson and Robert Duvall. But it also feels like a missed opportunity, given that the plot hinges on heist-flick standbys like sudden snafus, double crosses and chase scenes.
Davis plays Veronica, a cultured upper-class woman whose life is thrown into turmoil when her husband (Neeson) is killed along with three colleagues pulling off an armed robbery. The money was presumably blown up along with the gang, leaving Veronica in debt to some very angry and very vicious gangsters, one of whom also happens to be running for office in the famously corrupt city of Chicago.
Facing the loss of everything she has, Veronica locates the notebook in which her hubby has helpfully written out every detail of his next heist, and then convinces three other widows that they should take a crash course in robbery. And then complications ensue — but you knew they would, didn’t you?
The action includes the usual assortment of implausibilities, but the details are less important — to McQueen for sure, and because of that to the audience — than the glimpses of lives in perpetual panic, or of corruption so deep and pervasive that no one can ever escape it.
The heist is the film’s centerpiece, which means “Widows” plays like McQueen doing genre, not McQueen making a statement. The problem is that the genre he’s doing requires a lighter touch than he supplies — and if those car chases and double crosses aren’t at least a little fun, the action turns into a slog. A polished, dramatic slog, maybe, but a slog nonetheless.
Davis is typically fine, though “Widows” is unlikely to occupy as much real estate on her career-achievement clip packages than “Fences” or “Doubt” or “The Help.” Rodriguez, Debicki and Cynthia Erivo make for a team you can root for, even if you never really believe they can do what they’re doing.
On the male side, Neeson has enough gravitas that his very presence constitutes a kind of spoiler. And Farrell and Duvall serve as one side of the brutally corrupt coin, with Daniel Kaluuya and Brian Tyree Henry as the other.
“Widows” works as an example of Steve McQueen bending the genre to his particular obsessions. But it may also leave you hoping that he forgets about ill-fitting genres and goes back to a film where he can care about the whole story, not just part of it.
12 Hottest Toronto Movies for Sale, From 'Wild Rose' to 'Vox Lux' (Photos)
Natalie Portman's "Vox Lux," Robert Pattinson's "High Life" and Kristen Stewart's "Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy" are just a few hot sales titles heading to the Toronto International Film Festival this week.
"Wild Rose" [UTA]
"Wild Rose" was the first title numerous industry players called their most anticipated movie of the festival. It follows a young musician from Glasgow who wants to become a star in Nashville. Julie Walters and Jessie Buckley star in the Tom Harper-directed film.
TIFF
"Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile" [Voltage]
Zac Efron stars as one of America's most notorious serial killers, Ted Bundy, alongside Lily Collins, Jim Parsons and Kaya Scodelario. While it's not screening in competition, one major buyer told TheWrap, producers are screening the film outside the festival for potential suitors.
Getty Images; FBI
"High Life" [CAA]
Robert Pattinson has been quietly living in a post-“Twilight” renaissance for a few years now, with breakout performances in “Good Time” and “The Lost City of Z.” Which makes a film like Claire Denis' “High Life” all the more curious given how under-the-radar it’s been. Prospective buyers are intrigued by the cast (led by Pattinson) and the story: A group of criminals sent to space under dubious circumstances.
BFI Film Fund
"The Wedding Guest" [Endeavor Content/UTA]
Following his Oscar-nominated performance in "Lion," Dev Patel is back in "The Wedding Guest," which follows a man on a journey through India and Pakistan. Michael Winterbottom wrote and directed.
Revolution Films
"American Woman" [Endeavor Content]
Sienna Miller plays a woman who raises her young grandson after her daughter goes missing. With Christina Hendricks and Aaron Paul also is the cast, "American Woman" is sure to attract buyers.
Scott Free Productions
"Her Smell" [Endeavor Content]
Elisabeth Moss shines as Becky Something, a frontwoman for a '90s rock band, in a movie that also stars Amber Heard, Cara Delevingne, Virginia Madsen, Dan Stevens and Ashley Benson. Where are our "Handmaid's Tale" fans at?
Bow and Arrow Entertainment
"Vox Lux" [Endeavor Content]
In 2016, TheWrap exclusively reported that Brady Corbet's follow-up to his award-winning directorial debut, “The Childhood of a Leader," would be "Vox Lux." Described as “a 21st century story of Celeste, a pop star who comes to success as a result of unusual circumstances," the film stars Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Willem Dafoe and Jennifer Ehle. It already premiered at the Venice Film Festival to stellar reviews -- currently, it is rated 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Venice Film Festival
"The Weekend" [UTA]
"Everything Everything" director Stella Meghie returns to TIFF with this blissful rom-com that stars "SNL" alum Sasheer Zamata. It follows a comedian who gets romantically entangled with three other people during a weekend getaway.
Homegrown Pictures
"A Million Little Pieces" [CAA]
In Sam Taylor-Johnson's first movie since "Fifty Shades of Grey," her husband Aaron Johnson stars alongside Charlie Hunnam and Billy Bob Thornton in an adaptation of James Frey's book that was originally marketed as a "memoir" of addiction but turned out to be heavily fictionalized.
"The Death & Life of John F. Donovan" [CAA]
This film is the long-awaited English-language debut by international film festival l'enfant terrible Xavier Dolan, as well as an anticipated leading man debut by "Game of Thrones" star Kit Harington. The A-list cast also includes Natalie Portman, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates, Thandie Newton, Jacob Tremblay and Ben Schnetzer.
Warp Films
"Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy" [CAA]
If you think Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern isn't the dream casting of the century, what actually is wrong with you? Justin Kelly directs the film based on the true story of a middle-aged woman who wrote novels under the guise of a teenage boy named JT LeRoy -- while her sister-in-law (Stewart) made public appearances as the author.
LBI Entertainment
"American Dharma" [Endeavor Content]
"Fog of War" and "Gates of Heaven" director Errol Morris is back with "American Dharma," which is a documentary portraying controversial Breitbart editor and former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon.
TIFF
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Toronto film market has awards bait, a Steve Bannon doc and lots of Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman's "Vox Lux," Robert Pattinson's "High Life" and Kristen Stewart's "Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy" are just a few hot sales titles heading to the Toronto International Film Festival this week.