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Review: Widows (2018)
This movie was different from what I expected, but I thought it was good. I was expecting a heist movie more along the lines of Ocean's Eleven, or more recently, Ocean's Eight. But this movie was more drama than it was heist. I didn't know until the ending credits that Gillian Flynn was one of the writers, which explains the gloomy and serious atmosphere of the movie. I would definitely recommend this movie for drama and thriller fans alike.
Spoilers.
Story
A robbers' heist goes wrong and the money they stole disappeared with them. The person that the money was stolen, a local politician, went after the leader's wife who was Veronica, our main character. She was given her husband's plans for their next heist, and she decided to carry out the heist with the widows of the other widows of the bank robbers.
It was revealed that her husband Harry was not actually dead, and had double crossed his own team and faked his death to start a new life with the widow of another of the dead bank robbers.
There was also a political subplot concerning the elections race between Mulligan, a man who came from a family of politicians, and Manning, the up and comer. It was Manning who was robbed and he was threatening Veronica. Meanwhile, Mulligan was the person who the widows were stealing from.
Around half way through the movie, I was surprised that we had barely seen any heist-related events, in terms of planning the heist, and that's when I realized that the heist was just a small part of the movie. This movie was really more about exploring the truth behind the people involved.
For the widows, they had to come to terms with their new lives and what their priorities were without their husbands. I quite enjoyed the fact that we saw how gritty and tough their lives were. Veronica was coming to terms with the fact that her husband betrayed her in every way. Alice had to learn how to support herself and not rely on men no matter what her mother said. Linda was working to be the independent business owner she wanted to be.
I was a bit surprised that we got so much insight into the politicans' lives, because in terms of the heist plot, they didn't have such a big role. I think the fact that this movie was called "Widows" made me fixate mostly on the widows, and the truth was this movie was more about a number of different conflicts.
I definitely got Gillian Flynn vibes from this movie, not only because of the gloomy atmosphere, but because of we saw a less-than-glamorous portrayal of the women's lives. They weren't very enthusiastic about the heist, and I was particularly intrigued by the approach to Veronica's character. She truly just saw this as a one-time business venture that she was reluctantly forced into. So it surprised me at the end when Veronica approached Alice to say hi and catch up, because she was so adamant that they were not friends, but I think a fact of the matter was that she's in a much better place now than she was before.
So the writing in this movie was pretty good, and I was engaged for the entire movie. It did take a little bit for the story to gain traction but otherwise I was not bored at any time.
Production
I really have no complaints about this movie from a production standpoint. It looked very professional. Despite the explosion and action, it maintained its gloomy atmosphere, which helped the story.
There was some camera work that was unexpected. Though I can't say that it really wowed me, it was creative and it made me think. There was that scene when Mulligan got in his car and his aid Siobhan got in after him and gave him a pep talk. This scene was probably shot with the camera on the car, as the car remained stable in the frame as we saw it drive. What made me iffy was the fact that we never saw Mulligan and Siobhan in the car, and we just heard their voices. I thought it would've been more impactful to see that, but I guess the point was to see the one-take scene. I think the point of that scene was to take us from the community where Mulligan was promoting his Minority Women Owned Work program, to his very upscale home.
The acting was also pretty good, though it definitely was being propped up by the likes of Viola Davis and Colin Farrell. I don't necessarily think that Michelle Rodriguez and Elizabeth Debicki were bad, I just think they didn't have enough screentime to prove themselves despite being part of the widows. I think we saw Linda in action for a bit when she was trying to find out more about her plan, but we barely saw her interact with her kids, which would seem strange considering having a family was such a big part of her story. As for Alice, we saw short bits in which she was able to express herself, but I felt that she also wasn't given enough time in the movie to show how Alice came to be more confident.
Characters
Veronica Rawlings
Veronica was our titular character. It appeared she was deeply in love with her husband, though she didn't know much about his work. We don't know if it was purposeful ignorance, or whether Harry made an effort to keep it a secret, but I think it was a combination of both.
Soon after Harry died, Veronica was accosted by Jamal Manning, which began Veronica's journey. It was until Manning approached her that she was faced with the prospect of her husband being a bank robber. Based on that conversation with Manning, I got the sense that Veronica was wilfully blind to Harry's shady dealings because it afforded her her lavish lifestyle. She had a good enough job but we saw that she lived in a very fancy apartment. As Manning left, he said "welcome back" to Veronica, implying that now that she didn't have a rich white husband to rely on, she was back to being a regular working class black woman like the other black people in the community.
Veronica retrieved Harry's notebook and found the plans of his next heist. Veronica was encouraged to sell the notebook, but I think her lack of economic prospects worried her, and that was why she decided to take on the heist.
Throughout the process of preparing for the heist, Veronica was very cold and calculating, mostly because she hated having to do this. She worked for a union, she was not someone who did this kind of backbreaking work on the regular. The other women were bitter that Veronica didn't seem to be doing her part because she was always out. I think technically they were right, but for Veronica, knowing that Harry was alive meant that there was a lot that was still to be uncovered.
Veronica found out that her husband was still alive, living at the home of one of the widows of the bank robbers, who had a four month old baby. It was implied that Harry not only had an affair, but a baby came out of it, which was definitely a huge betrayal to Veronica. When Veronica and Harry had their confrontation, Veronica was also bitter that Harry was running away with a white woman, which was probably driven by the fear she'd hidden. As I mentioned, I think Veronica was probably wilfully ignorant so that she could live a good life, a life that a black woman probably could not work her way into.
We later found out that Veronica and Harry's relationship wasn't all sunshine and rainbows too. They had a teenage son who'd been shot dead after an encounter with the police, and that cause conflict between Veronica and Harry. I think realizing that Harry was going behind her back made Veronica realize that this marriage had already been over, that she had to fight for herself now.
The heist went into a hiccup when the women had to kill Tom Mulligan, and later when Jatemme hijacked their car, but they did get the money out. Harry came to intervene and take the money. Harry slapped Veronica to get her out of the way and to grab the money, which shocked me, because I guess their relationship was a lot worse than how it'd been portrayed at the beginning of the movie. In any case, Veronica then shot Harry, and continued packing the money.
At the end of the movie, Veronia gave money to the school system to build a library, which implies that she did not use her money to live lavishly, but to be a compassionate person.
As I mentioned, I was surprised that Veronica had greeted Alice at the cafe, as Veronica was so cold to all of them during the heist. But during the heist, Veronica was grieving in many ways. She'd mourned her husband, then she had to learn that her husband was alive and was planning to run away with another woman, someone who had something that she could never have (i.e. being white). She also had a politician/mob boss breathing down her neck threatening her and the people around her for $2 million. So she was under a lot of stress.
But after all of that was done, we saw Veronica a lot more relaxed. She was doing the things she wanted to do with the money she had. She had space in her life for friends again.
Veronica as a character was interesting, but I think I was more interested in how Viola Davis brought her to life. Veronica was both sympathetic and emotional, but calculating and cold when she was forced to the brink.
Harry Rawlings
At the beginning of the movie, we were under the impression that Harry was a good husband who just happened to have a shady job.
As the audience, we learned two things about Harry whereas Veronica only learned one. Veronica learned about Harry's infidelity, but I don't think she ever learned about the fact that Harry was in cahoots with Mulligan. To be honest, I'm not really sure what the point was of seeing Mulligan and Harry together on that boat. It would make sense for Harry and Mulligan to be close as a ploy on Harry's part to get to understand his house, but in terms of the plot, Mulligan's relationship with Harry didn't seem as relevant other than to give Veronica a reason to visit Mulligan's house.
Anyway we saw that not only was Harry not loyal, but he was also selfish. He tried to steal the money that Veronica stole from Mulligan. I was confused as to why he did, as he was all set to go run away with Amanda. He has hoped that Veronica would just sell the book and pay Manning the money, and they'd be done. But my guess was that Harry was just a greedy and vengeful man. He probably saw the money as his because he was the architect behind the plan, and he couldn't just let all that money go.
For the most part, Harry was kind of a villain in the background. He was a villain because he had disappeared, so it made sense that he wouldn't be on screen too much.
Linda
Linda had a bad relationship with her husband, but at least she had a store and her kids. When her husband died, she found out that she didn't actually own the store. Presumably the rent was lower than what Linda thought it was and her husband was using the rest of his money for his gambling habit.
Anyway, I'm guessing Linda agreed to the heist because even though she didn't have a husband, she still had a dream of being a business owner, and this was her way to get back into business.
Linda also had some legwork to do when Veronica asked her to find out more about that blueprint. She had to trick her way into finding the information.
I wasn't super satisfied with Linda's character because she seemed all over the place with how she was portrayed.
As I mentioned, it was made a big deal how she was a working mother, but we barely saw her interact with her kids. Her kids were always in the background, but I never saw her parent her, not like how we saw with Belle. Even though Belle had very short interactions with her kids, we could see that she loved them but prioritized earning money. I can't even tell how Linda felt about her kids.
Then Linda, had to do some sleuthing to find information about that blueprint. Linda had revealed to the others that she'd been to prison, so I guess that's supposed to support the fact that she would use less-than-legit means of getting information.
That meeting with Mr. Foster was really weird too. Mr. Foster asked her to leave because he realized she wasn't from the company she said she was, that his wife died four months ago. That made Linda upset because she was reminded of her husband who died two weeks ago. Then they got emotional and started making out. What is this supposed to tell us? Was this supposed to be Linda's two seconds of grieving? In that case, was the making out an accident? For a second, I thought Linda was going to use her vulnerability as an excuse to get information from Mr. Foster, but she truly was upset. So I can only guess that this was her only finding the time to grieve then.
Alice/Alitzia
Alice was married to Florek who was abusive. After her husband died and she had no income, her mother encouraged her to join a sugar dating website. Her mother was of the belief that women should be provided for, and that it was unacceptable for Alice to find a job. In a moment of weakness, Alice had bitterly commented on the fact that her mother had always enjoyed being a trophy wife more than being a mother, and her mother had hit her, but it showed that she grew up with people encouraging her to stay in shitty situations.
Alice did become a sugar baby to David, and it was going okay. He was nice enough, for someone who was a stranger.
My guess as to why Alice agreed to the heist was because she wanted to accomplish something on her own for once. She'd grown up with people telling her that she shouldn't have to lift a finger, but she also wasn't allowed to be, especially by her mother. Alice ran into a lot of problems with the tasks Veronia assigned to her, but this was also her first time being given so much responsibility, and I think that Alice kind of liked that.
Alice and David's relationship became a little rocky because David always expected Alice to drop everything and cater to him because he was paying her. When Veronica came to her apartment and Alice freaked out and stopped them, David was upset because they were in the middle of having sex. He left soon afterward even though they were supposed to go out on a date.
David had helped Alice find out more about the floor plan they had, and in exchange expected Alice to come with him to Shanghai the day after. While what David did for Alice was big, his expectations of her was not. Even when you make an appointment with someone, you need to give them time in advance to plan, but David felt that since he was funding Alice's entire life, that she had no reason to live other than to please him.
This contrasted with the fact that David would never invite Alice to his home, and he even said that they had an arrangement, not a marriage. So David's expectations for Alice did not align with what Alice wanted. To be fair, what David wanted was probably typical for a sugar daddy, but Alice never wanted to be in a sugar relationship. She had only done it after being pushed by her mother.
Anyway, the money allowed Alice to get back on her feet and be independent. She had her own friends, and I assume she was living well.
Belle
Belle was a busy mother working two jobs. She was a beautician and also a babysitter. She met the gang through babysitting for Linda, and was later recruited onto the team to be a driver.
I'm not really sure whether there was a point to Belle feeling disrespected by Veronica when they first met. I felt that Belle was trying to bring Veronica down to earth, but I didn't really see what the point of that was. Was Veronica really disrespectful? She was just doing business. I didn't really see it as disrespectful but maybe it's just me.
Anyway, Belle was also very athletic, so she helped scope out the security situation at the Mulligan house.
Belle was supposed to be the driver, but she was threatened by Jatemme and the car was hijacked, but the women caught up with him and indirectly killed him.
With her cut of the money, Belle left town with her daughter.
I am also a bit iffy about Belle's characterization. If she was so busy with her two jobs, when did she find the time to exercise? Maybe she did her small bit of exercising running to and from the bus? In addition, what did her being an athletic person have to do with her being a driver? As far as Linda knew, when she asked Belle whether she could drive, Belle could've just been like, an average driver like you or me. What qualified her?
I feel like Belle was a last minute character snuck into the plot because the movie needed four characters to pull off a heist. I guess Belle was also there to inform us about the MWOW program and how it hurt business owners too, but Belle as a character didn't make as much sense as she could.
Jack Mulligan
Mulligan was a politician, and he was expected to win as his father was also a politician in the area. Like all politicians, he was corrupt, but that wasn't really the story. I think his character's "thing" was that he hated his dad and he didn't even like politics. We saw that his dad was very racist and Mulligan said he was a mess of a politician because he was cleaning up his dad's mess, though I feel like all politicians do messy things and it's always up to the next person to clean it up, so I don't know if that's inherently a thing to hate him for.
Anyway, Jack had $5 million sitting in his vault because of some commission cuts he had taken, and they were stolen by the widows. During the robbery, his father had been shot and killed by the robbers, and the political commentators suspected that it was the murder that gave Jack Mulligan some sympathy votes.
Siobhan
Siobhan was Jack Mulligan's aid, and I was surprised she had as small of a role as she did. She was his aid and followed him everywhere, but we saw that she was possibly more ambitious than Jack Mulligan. She was definitely smarter than him, and the only thing that Jack Mulligan had over her was probably pedigree.
When Mulligan was whining about his job, Siobhan told him to suck it up, which is fair. He was a rich man playing a rich man's game at his job and he was complaining about it? Siobhan was as much of a politician as Mulligan was, and without her, Mulligan would not look even half as capable as he did.
Jamal Manning
Manning was the challenger to Mulligan, but we were supposed to get the sense that he was also not a good person. It was implied that Manning came from a rough background, like many of the other black people in the community, and he was trying to use politics to lift him out of that lifestyle.
Jatemme Manning
Jatemme was the guy who did a lot of the shady work for Jamal Manning, including all of the murder and a lot of threatening. He was so used to murder that his brother had to put him on no-kill probation leading up to his election.
Themes
I felt that there was a class difference theme going on in this movie, particularly between the white community and the black community, as that was a big driver of the political conflict between Manning and Mulligan.
Jamal Manning actually lived in the ward he was running for, whereas Mulligan just owned a house there. We saw that the house he lived in was lavish as fuck. So Manning did have a leg to stand on when challenging Mulligan for not understanding a thing about their community.
This was also an undercurrent in Veronica's insecurity about her place in her marriage. As I mentioned, I think she knew that it was near impossible for her as a black woman to work her way into being living lavishly. Maybe she could earn a lot of money, but even then, she wouldn't get the respect that an average white woman would get. And after her husband's death, she realized that she really was living off of him as she didn't own the apartment or any part of the fancy life that she lived. And I think it was her fear of falling behind into the life she didn't want to live again that drove her to be so determined to go through with the heist.
Overall
This was a good movie. I think the plot was better than some of the characters, but I still thought it was a movie worth watching.
Spoilers.
Story
A robbers' heist goes wrong and the money they stole disappeared with them. The person that the money was stolen, a local politician, went after the leader's wife who was Veronica, our main character. She was given her husband's plans for their next heist, and she decided to carry out the heist with the widows of the other widows of the bank robbers.
It was revealed that her husband Harry was not actually dead, and had double crossed his own team and faked his death to start a new life with the widow of another of the dead bank robbers.
There was also a political subplot concerning the elections race between Mulligan, a man who came from a family of politicians, and Manning, the up and comer. It was Manning who was robbed and he was threatening Veronica. Meanwhile, Mulligan was the person who the widows were stealing from.
Around half way through the movie, I was surprised that we had barely seen any heist-related events, in terms of planning the heist, and that's when I realized that the heist was just a small part of the movie. This movie was really more about exploring the truth behind the people involved.
For the widows, they had to come to terms with their new lives and what their priorities were without their husbands. I quite enjoyed the fact that we saw how gritty and tough their lives were. Veronica was coming to terms with the fact that her husband betrayed her in every way. Alice had to learn how to support herself and not rely on men no matter what her mother said. Linda was working to be the independent business owner she wanted to be.
I was a bit surprised that we got so much insight into the politicans' lives, because in terms of the heist plot, they didn't have such a big role. I think the fact that this movie was called "Widows" made me fixate mostly on the widows, and the truth was this movie was more about a number of different conflicts.
I definitely got Gillian Flynn vibes from this movie, not only because of the gloomy atmosphere, but because of we saw a less-than-glamorous portrayal of the women's lives. They weren't very enthusiastic about the heist, and I was particularly intrigued by the approach to Veronica's character. She truly just saw this as a one-time business venture that she was reluctantly forced into. So it surprised me at the end when Veronica approached Alice to say hi and catch up, because she was so adamant that they were not friends, but I think a fact of the matter was that she's in a much better place now than she was before.
So the writing in this movie was pretty good, and I was engaged for the entire movie. It did take a little bit for the story to gain traction but otherwise I was not bored at any time.
Production
I really have no complaints about this movie from a production standpoint. It looked very professional. Despite the explosion and action, it maintained its gloomy atmosphere, which helped the story.
There was some camera work that was unexpected. Though I can't say that it really wowed me, it was creative and it made me think. There was that scene when Mulligan got in his car and his aid Siobhan got in after him and gave him a pep talk. This scene was probably shot with the camera on the car, as the car remained stable in the frame as we saw it drive. What made me iffy was the fact that we never saw Mulligan and Siobhan in the car, and we just heard their voices. I thought it would've been more impactful to see that, but I guess the point was to see the one-take scene. I think the point of that scene was to take us from the community where Mulligan was promoting his Minority Women Owned Work program, to his very upscale home.
The acting was also pretty good, though it definitely was being propped up by the likes of Viola Davis and Colin Farrell. I don't necessarily think that Michelle Rodriguez and Elizabeth Debicki were bad, I just think they didn't have enough screentime to prove themselves despite being part of the widows. I think we saw Linda in action for a bit when she was trying to find out more about her plan, but we barely saw her interact with her kids, which would seem strange considering having a family was such a big part of her story. As for Alice, we saw short bits in which she was able to express herself, but I felt that she also wasn't given enough time in the movie to show how Alice came to be more confident.
Characters
Veronica Rawlings
Veronica was our titular character. It appeared she was deeply in love with her husband, though she didn't know much about his work. We don't know if it was purposeful ignorance, or whether Harry made an effort to keep it a secret, but I think it was a combination of both.
Soon after Harry died, Veronica was accosted by Jamal Manning, which began Veronica's journey. It was until Manning approached her that she was faced with the prospect of her husband being a bank robber. Based on that conversation with Manning, I got the sense that Veronica was wilfully blind to Harry's shady dealings because it afforded her her lavish lifestyle. She had a good enough job but we saw that she lived in a very fancy apartment. As Manning left, he said "welcome back" to Veronica, implying that now that she didn't have a rich white husband to rely on, she was back to being a regular working class black woman like the other black people in the community.
Veronica retrieved Harry's notebook and found the plans of his next heist. Veronica was encouraged to sell the notebook, but I think her lack of economic prospects worried her, and that was why she decided to take on the heist.
Throughout the process of preparing for the heist, Veronica was very cold and calculating, mostly because she hated having to do this. She worked for a union, she was not someone who did this kind of backbreaking work on the regular. The other women were bitter that Veronica didn't seem to be doing her part because she was always out. I think technically they were right, but for Veronica, knowing that Harry was alive meant that there was a lot that was still to be uncovered.
Veronica found out that her husband was still alive, living at the home of one of the widows of the bank robbers, who had a four month old baby. It was implied that Harry not only had an affair, but a baby came out of it, which was definitely a huge betrayal to Veronica. When Veronica and Harry had their confrontation, Veronica was also bitter that Harry was running away with a white woman, which was probably driven by the fear she'd hidden. As I mentioned, I think Veronica was probably wilfully ignorant so that she could live a good life, a life that a black woman probably could not work her way into.
We later found out that Veronica and Harry's relationship wasn't all sunshine and rainbows too. They had a teenage son who'd been shot dead after an encounter with the police, and that cause conflict between Veronica and Harry. I think realizing that Harry was going behind her back made Veronica realize that this marriage had already been over, that she had to fight for herself now.
The heist went into a hiccup when the women had to kill Tom Mulligan, and later when Jatemme hijacked their car, but they did get the money out. Harry came to intervene and take the money. Harry slapped Veronica to get her out of the way and to grab the money, which shocked me, because I guess their relationship was a lot worse than how it'd been portrayed at the beginning of the movie. In any case, Veronica then shot Harry, and continued packing the money.
At the end of the movie, Veronia gave money to the school system to build a library, which implies that she did not use her money to live lavishly, but to be a compassionate person.
As I mentioned, I was surprised that Veronica had greeted Alice at the cafe, as Veronica was so cold to all of them during the heist. But during the heist, Veronica was grieving in many ways. She'd mourned her husband, then she had to learn that her husband was alive and was planning to run away with another woman, someone who had something that she could never have (i.e. being white). She also had a politician/mob boss breathing down her neck threatening her and the people around her for $2 million. So she was under a lot of stress.
But after all of that was done, we saw Veronica a lot more relaxed. She was doing the things she wanted to do with the money she had. She had space in her life for friends again.
Veronica as a character was interesting, but I think I was more interested in how Viola Davis brought her to life. Veronica was both sympathetic and emotional, but calculating and cold when she was forced to the brink.
Harry Rawlings
At the beginning of the movie, we were under the impression that Harry was a good husband who just happened to have a shady job.
As the audience, we learned two things about Harry whereas Veronica only learned one. Veronica learned about Harry's infidelity, but I don't think she ever learned about the fact that Harry was in cahoots with Mulligan. To be honest, I'm not really sure what the point was of seeing Mulligan and Harry together on that boat. It would make sense for Harry and Mulligan to be close as a ploy on Harry's part to get to understand his house, but in terms of the plot, Mulligan's relationship with Harry didn't seem as relevant other than to give Veronica a reason to visit Mulligan's house.
Anyway we saw that not only was Harry not loyal, but he was also selfish. He tried to steal the money that Veronica stole from Mulligan. I was confused as to why he did, as he was all set to go run away with Amanda. He has hoped that Veronica would just sell the book and pay Manning the money, and they'd be done. But my guess was that Harry was just a greedy and vengeful man. He probably saw the money as his because he was the architect behind the plan, and he couldn't just let all that money go.
For the most part, Harry was kind of a villain in the background. He was a villain because he had disappeared, so it made sense that he wouldn't be on screen too much.
Linda
Linda had a bad relationship with her husband, but at least she had a store and her kids. When her husband died, she found out that she didn't actually own the store. Presumably the rent was lower than what Linda thought it was and her husband was using the rest of his money for his gambling habit.
Anyway, I'm guessing Linda agreed to the heist because even though she didn't have a husband, she still had a dream of being a business owner, and this was her way to get back into business.
Linda also had some legwork to do when Veronica asked her to find out more about that blueprint. She had to trick her way into finding the information.
I wasn't super satisfied with Linda's character because she seemed all over the place with how she was portrayed.
As I mentioned, it was made a big deal how she was a working mother, but we barely saw her interact with her kids. Her kids were always in the background, but I never saw her parent her, not like how we saw with Belle. Even though Belle had very short interactions with her kids, we could see that she loved them but prioritized earning money. I can't even tell how Linda felt about her kids.
Then Linda, had to do some sleuthing to find information about that blueprint. Linda had revealed to the others that she'd been to prison, so I guess that's supposed to support the fact that she would use less-than-legit means of getting information.
That meeting with Mr. Foster was really weird too. Mr. Foster asked her to leave because he realized she wasn't from the company she said she was, that his wife died four months ago. That made Linda upset because she was reminded of her husband who died two weeks ago. Then they got emotional and started making out. What is this supposed to tell us? Was this supposed to be Linda's two seconds of grieving? In that case, was the making out an accident? For a second, I thought Linda was going to use her vulnerability as an excuse to get information from Mr. Foster, but she truly was upset. So I can only guess that this was her only finding the time to grieve then.
Alice/Alitzia
Alice was married to Florek who was abusive. After her husband died and she had no income, her mother encouraged her to join a sugar dating website. Her mother was of the belief that women should be provided for, and that it was unacceptable for Alice to find a job. In a moment of weakness, Alice had bitterly commented on the fact that her mother had always enjoyed being a trophy wife more than being a mother, and her mother had hit her, but it showed that she grew up with people encouraging her to stay in shitty situations.
Alice did become a sugar baby to David, and it was going okay. He was nice enough, for someone who was a stranger.
My guess as to why Alice agreed to the heist was because she wanted to accomplish something on her own for once. She'd grown up with people telling her that she shouldn't have to lift a finger, but she also wasn't allowed to be, especially by her mother. Alice ran into a lot of problems with the tasks Veronia assigned to her, but this was also her first time being given so much responsibility, and I think that Alice kind of liked that.
Alice and David's relationship became a little rocky because David always expected Alice to drop everything and cater to him because he was paying her. When Veronica came to her apartment and Alice freaked out and stopped them, David was upset because they were in the middle of having sex. He left soon afterward even though they were supposed to go out on a date.
David had helped Alice find out more about the floor plan they had, and in exchange expected Alice to come with him to Shanghai the day after. While what David did for Alice was big, his expectations of her was not. Even when you make an appointment with someone, you need to give them time in advance to plan, but David felt that since he was funding Alice's entire life, that she had no reason to live other than to please him.
This contrasted with the fact that David would never invite Alice to his home, and he even said that they had an arrangement, not a marriage. So David's expectations for Alice did not align with what Alice wanted. To be fair, what David wanted was probably typical for a sugar daddy, but Alice never wanted to be in a sugar relationship. She had only done it after being pushed by her mother.
Anyway, the money allowed Alice to get back on her feet and be independent. She had her own friends, and I assume she was living well.
Belle
Belle was a busy mother working two jobs. She was a beautician and also a babysitter. She met the gang through babysitting for Linda, and was later recruited onto the team to be a driver.
I'm not really sure whether there was a point to Belle feeling disrespected by Veronica when they first met. I felt that Belle was trying to bring Veronica down to earth, but I didn't really see what the point of that was. Was Veronica really disrespectful? She was just doing business. I didn't really see it as disrespectful but maybe it's just me.
Anyway, Belle was also very athletic, so she helped scope out the security situation at the Mulligan house.
Belle was supposed to be the driver, but she was threatened by Jatemme and the car was hijacked, but the women caught up with him and indirectly killed him.
With her cut of the money, Belle left town with her daughter.
I am also a bit iffy about Belle's characterization. If she was so busy with her two jobs, when did she find the time to exercise? Maybe she did her small bit of exercising running to and from the bus? In addition, what did her being an athletic person have to do with her being a driver? As far as Linda knew, when she asked Belle whether she could drive, Belle could've just been like, an average driver like you or me. What qualified her?
I feel like Belle was a last minute character snuck into the plot because the movie needed four characters to pull off a heist. I guess Belle was also there to inform us about the MWOW program and how it hurt business owners too, but Belle as a character didn't make as much sense as she could.
Jack Mulligan
Mulligan was a politician, and he was expected to win as his father was also a politician in the area. Like all politicians, he was corrupt, but that wasn't really the story. I think his character's "thing" was that he hated his dad and he didn't even like politics. We saw that his dad was very racist and Mulligan said he was a mess of a politician because he was cleaning up his dad's mess, though I feel like all politicians do messy things and it's always up to the next person to clean it up, so I don't know if that's inherently a thing to hate him for.
Anyway, Jack had $5 million sitting in his vault because of some commission cuts he had taken, and they were stolen by the widows. During the robbery, his father had been shot and killed by the robbers, and the political commentators suspected that it was the murder that gave Jack Mulligan some sympathy votes.
Siobhan
Siobhan was Jack Mulligan's aid, and I was surprised she had as small of a role as she did. She was his aid and followed him everywhere, but we saw that she was possibly more ambitious than Jack Mulligan. She was definitely smarter than him, and the only thing that Jack Mulligan had over her was probably pedigree.
When Mulligan was whining about his job, Siobhan told him to suck it up, which is fair. He was a rich man playing a rich man's game at his job and he was complaining about it? Siobhan was as much of a politician as Mulligan was, and without her, Mulligan would not look even half as capable as he did.
Jamal Manning
Manning was the challenger to Mulligan, but we were supposed to get the sense that he was also not a good person. It was implied that Manning came from a rough background, like many of the other black people in the community, and he was trying to use politics to lift him out of that lifestyle.
Jatemme Manning
Jatemme was the guy who did a lot of the shady work for Jamal Manning, including all of the murder and a lot of threatening. He was so used to murder that his brother had to put him on no-kill probation leading up to his election.
Themes
I felt that there was a class difference theme going on in this movie, particularly between the white community and the black community, as that was a big driver of the political conflict between Manning and Mulligan.
Jamal Manning actually lived in the ward he was running for, whereas Mulligan just owned a house there. We saw that the house he lived in was lavish as fuck. So Manning did have a leg to stand on when challenging Mulligan for not understanding a thing about their community.
This was also an undercurrent in Veronica's insecurity about her place in her marriage. As I mentioned, I think she knew that it was near impossible for her as a black woman to work her way into being living lavishly. Maybe she could earn a lot of money, but even then, she wouldn't get the respect that an average white woman would get. And after her husband's death, she realized that she really was living off of him as she didn't own the apartment or any part of the fancy life that she lived. And I think it was her fear of falling behind into the life she didn't want to live again that drove her to be so determined to go through with the heist.
Overall
This was a good movie. I think the plot was better than some of the characters, but I still thought it was a movie worth watching.