The Bechdel Cast - Widows with Michael-Michelle Pratt

Episode Date: September 16, 2021

This week, Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Michael-Michelle Pratt come together to plan a heist and discuss Widows.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @femmesnfilms on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. That's right, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Las Culturistas. That's right, the queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories,

and of course, the culture. Don't miss Katherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.

There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Jamie.

Hey, Caitlin. You know how our husbands died in a botched podcast episode? Or did they? Well, we don't know just yet, but let's assume that they did. Okay. Okay. Do you want to maybe start our own podcast together? Wow. But, but not because we want our own podcast to sort of like finish their unfinished podcast business, right? We're finishing their podcast. We're finishing their last podcast episode there and and we have some people after us that if we don't finish their podcast they're gonna kill us sophie

if we don't finish the podcast she finds us and she hunts us yeah but if we do successfully finish it we're gonna be so rich oh well obviously all podcasters are extremely rich well i feel pretty good about that intro i feel i thank you i hope that i hope everyone had a great time listening to it because i had a great time participating. Yeah, you're welcome, everybody. Hello and welcome to... Very diplomatic. Welcome to the Bechdelcast. My name is Caitlin Durante.

My name is Jamie Loftus. And this is our podcast about ruining movies that you previously really enjoyed using an intersectional feminist lens. Or in some cases, celebrating pretty good movies. That's true. I guess that that would have been a more appropriate setup for this particular episode yeah but yeah this is uh this is this is our damn podcast you know if you're if you're just getting here uh welcome if you've been here for a while kick your feet up baby get comfortable because it's the widow's episode we've gotten a lot of

requests for i feel like we've been getting requests for this episode since the movie came out almost three years ago now. So it's been a long time coming and I'm so excited to cover it. Same. But hold on. What is our podcast? Oh, gee whiz. It's an examination of film through an intersectional feminist lens. Right. Where we use the Bechel-Wallace test

that requires our variation on the test is that two people of any marginalized gender have to have names, they must speak to each other, and their conversation has to be about something other than a man. Ideally, it is a meaningful plot relevant conversation right but if it's a two-line exchange we'll we'll consider it we go case by case i don't think it's a huge issue for this particular movie but we've uh we've had to really get in the weeds in the past hitlin i was realizing the other day that we've been on this podcast longer than we were in high school. Whoa. How wild. And I feel like I've learned way more. Same. So we're like- Than I did in high school. We're like super seniors because this is our fifth year of doing the podcast.

Yeah. With no end in sight, we're never going to graduate. Fine by me. Hell yeah. Let's get our guest in here shall we let's do it she is a freelance journalist she's had work published in harper's bazaar she's also a film student and aspiring filmmaker it's michael michelle pratt hello and welcome welcome hi thank you for having me no i'm a huge fan and i'm really excited uh to be here and i i like i love this movie so i'm very excited yay we're so happy to have you we're so psyched uh so we're we're covering uh widows it's a 2018 movie directed by steve mcqueen screenplay by steve mcqueen and jillian is it jillian it's and Jillian? Is it Jillian? I think it's Jillian. God damn it. I am a

misogynist, which is why I didn't double check her name before. But either way. So Michael, Michelle, to get stuff started, what is your history with this movie yes i i wanted to go see in theaters uh i i think it might have been i i don't know if it was either opening weekend or the weekend after opening weekend but i shot with my mom um like i like i like a really like late night showing because i i loved the trailer um i think rayelle davis is just you know her existence i just all the performances give her everything i love her um i'm not a huge 12 year dyslexia but i love everything else even when i think he's also really brilliant um and so i was just like i was like really psyched for this and so i loved the trailer i wanted to go see it um and then was really mad it was like me my mom

and like one other guy in the corner i was like this is oh no one else was mad. It was like me, my mom, and like one other guy in the corner. I was like, this is. Oh, no one else was there? No, it was like three of us just at this like awkward like 11 o'clock night screening. And I was like, wow, okay. I was like, is this out? Yeah. What did your mom think? So she liked it, but she didn't like the ending.

Because my mom hated uh like ambiguous endings and i was like that's the fun of it because they're like maybe they've become friends you don't know and they've been like through this whole this really tumultuous traumatic period but they're kind of friends and it's cool and i love ambiguous endings to films that's like my thing but she was like but she was like i wanted like more closure i was like that wasn't the the point but fine i was like you i was like you know fine but yeah she wouldn't really she wasn't really a fan of yeah of the ending but but other than that i think i think she liked it yeah nice uh jamie what about you what's your relationship with the movie not too much i i had seen it. I think I hadn't seen it until quarantine last year. But I had a copy of

it at my house. My boyfriend's a huge fan of this movie. He's seen it like 10 times. It's like one of his comfort movies, even though it's like not even that old of a movie. So he was like, you're gonna sit down with me and watch it. Not very comforting either no it's kind of stressful but I have I don't know I feel like everyone has a stressful comfort movie where it's like I can't exactly put my finger on why this would bring me peace but for some reason it does I mean Titanic is definitely one of my comfort movies and also not comforting at all and bodies are hitting the floor the whole time but yes I just saw it last year and now I think I've seen it three times and it's so it's already so interesting where this movie is three years old but I feel like already having a little bit

of distance from it it's really interesting to watch back because this was like immediately after the me too movement started movie and i feel like that is very present and how it was marketed and already just with a couple years of of distance from it i really enjoyed the movie it's like such a blast the cast is like i can't think of a more fun cast for a movie and yeah i don't know i feel like there's so much to talk about it's uh it's it's a goddamn romp uh what what about you caitlin what's your history with this one i didn't see it in theaters but i saw it a few months later you know i remember there being quite a bit of buzz about it. And it won some awards. I think some BAFTAs, I believe. So I...

This is a very British movie for a movie that takes place in Chicago. I did not know Steve McQueen was English until I started reading some stuff about him. Yeah, I don't know how I missed that detail. But I did make the kind of stray observation that there are a lot of British and Irish actors in this movie playing Americans between Colin Farrell, Liam Neeson and Daniel Kaluuya. Daniel Kaluuya. Yeah. Like once you know Steve McQueen is from the UK, you're like, oh, yeah, that's why half of this cast is very much not from Chicago yeah um so anyway I saw the movie I love a good heist movie and I Cynthia Erivo too is British I believe sorry oh is she okay got it yeah but yeah I uh I thought it was a really

well-crafted movie and I was excited to watch it again and to discuss it right here on this episode. Yep. Should we get into the recap? Let's do it. Okay, so the movie begins with a robbery that is taking place by a team of four men. We also cut to quick glimpses of their home lives, and we see them with their wives. Their wives. Their wives.

Their wives. The ringleader is Harry Rawlings. That's Liam Neeson. He is married to Veronica Rawlings. That is Viola Davis. The other wives are, this is going to be very hard for me to not constantly do this. I mean, that's literally the premise of the movie. It's like, they're wives.

They're wives. They're dead husbands. Exactly. Every five seconds, they have to remind you. They're dead. Right. So the other wives are Linda. That's Michelle Rodriguez.

Alice. That's Elizabeth DeBecke. And I think of her as Mrs. Tenet. That's the only other thing I know her from. She is really tall. She's really tall and she was in Tenet. I did not realize that was her. Yes.

Tenet, I mean, I feel like I blacked it all out, but she was definitely in it. Good to know. I didn't see that. How did that turn out? I never saw Tenet. How did that go? I don't know.

I feel like I would have had more fun if they had just held on to it and released it when people could go to theaters. But because it was like I watched it at a drive in and I had no idea what was happening. And then I tried to watch it on streaming and I was like, I still have no idea. Like, I don't know. I was so confused. I saw it in the comfort of my own home granted it was in the middle of the night and i was tired and falling asleep but i didn't follow the story at

all i think the world building is really confusing and like not set up very well but again it could have been that i was asleep if christopher nolan okay here's my here's my hot take if christopher nolan is so interested in time why has he wasted so much of mine and then imagine me dunking a basketball and then notanda also played by carrie coon oh yes then we see the robbery go all wrong the men are shot and killed and also exploded by cops yeah i kind of appreciated that they triple killed yeah i was like okay so there's or at least i thought spoiler ahead but i was like wow these guys are super dead they couldn't be deader just bits everywhere just and and they keep saying over and over like they

they're just yep just shot everywhere just they were on the ground they just they keep saying it over and over. They're just shot everywhere. They're on the ground. They keep reiterating it to let you know they're super dead. They have to keep reiterating it. Could not be less alive. To the point that later when it's like the big Gillian Flynn style twist

comes up, you're kind of like, oh, I guess they almost lay it on too thick that they're super dead you're like oh okay i fell for i totally fell for it the first time i saw this movie i did not see the twist coming at all oh yeah me either oh no me neither i was like what i was i was i was amazed i can't excuse me huh i was? Huh? I was like, he's in the doorway. What? Right?

Yeah, it was a solid twist. I feel like there's so many twists are so easy to predict, but Gone Girl got us, baby. She got us again. Gone Girl Gillian gets us again. Wow. The alliteration is astounding. Incredible headline. Okay. us again wow the alliteration wow is astounding incredible headline

okay so uh the men are shot and killed and exploded meaning the wives are now widows that's the name of the movie okay then we meet jack mulligan that's col Farrell. And we meet Jamal Manning. That's Brian Tyree Henry. They are both politicians running for alderman of Chicago's 18th Ward. I had to look up what that was. And now I know. It's basically

like a city council member, right? Yeah. See, I never figured out what the actual office was. So every time I watch it, I'm like, you know, it's some kind of political thing i don't know exactly but i'm just gonna i'm just like something is happening you know there's some kind of office going on i i had to read that elsewhere i i did not figure this out on my own i kind of wish they told you in the movie because it's like yeah because it it's not. It is just like a city councilman position. I felt so I when I realized that both of their initials were JM, I was like, oh, wow. Makes you think I got really excited.

What does it mean? I don't know. But I was just like, that has to be on purpose. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Not not sure. So they're running for Chicago's 18th Ward, which is a predominantly low-income Black neighborhood. Jack is trying to get Jamal to drop out of the race, but he refuses. That's Daniel Kaluuya. And we, at some point around this time, also meet Jack Mulligan's father, Tom Mulligan, who is a career politician.

Full on evil. Robert Duvall. Robert Duvall. So we meet these politicians and then some of their family. Right. So the Mulligans are this almost like Chicago Kennedys, like just clinginginging to power but don't actually care about anybody sort of family and then Jamal is kind of like a I heard Steve McQueen in an interview be like he's my Michael Corleone and I was like oh that kind of does make sense like he's he's like

a godfather style guy and it's like the I don I don't know, Daniel Kaluuya, it seems like, is having so much fun in this movie. That's very clear. He's having a blast. He's so scary. Yeah. Yeah. And what's really amazing to me is he's so scary. He's so scary with such little dialogue.

And it's all like the posture and the shoulders and and you're so frightened but he's doing all of his and commanding such space and with things that's little and just every time i watch i'm like but and you can tell he's enjoying all of it and it's just it's amazing to watch it's it's a great performance and he's such a talented actor he's so good and it's so fun to watch actors having fun especially in sequences like i mean so many of his sequences are and like mob movies are like has never really been my genre but it's like when someone is like you know daniel kaluuya comes in the room you're like oh he's gonna kill someone in a way that's really interesting to watch and it keeps happening it's

oh my god when he kills the guy's Oh my god, when he kills the guy and then he watches football when he kills the guy while he's singing. Wild. Love it. Oh, okay. So then we learn that the botched robbery that we saw was Harry Rawlings and his team stealing $2 million from Jamal Manningning and that that money burnt up in the explosion then we cut back to the wives the widows of the robbers mourning their late husbands we meet bash that's uh harry's driver he gives veronica a key to a safety deposit box. This is something that Harry wanted her to have if anything ever happened to him. Then Jamal approaches Veronica. He knows that her husband stole from him and he wants the $2 million back.

He says that she has a month to liquidate her assets and get that money to him. We've also, by this this point seen Jatem murder a couple people. So we know that these guys mean business and that the stakes are very high for Veronica. Yeah. She then goes to the safety deposit box and inside is a notebook that details Harry's next job, a $5 million robbery. So then Veronica contacts the other widows. She has the idea to work with them to pull off this $5 million heist so that she can take some of that money and pay Jamal back and then they will split the rest. So Linda and Alice show up, but the other widow, Amanda, does not. So Veronica convinces Linda and Alice to do this.

It's established that they are both struggling financially after the death of their husbands. Right. They're not like as in immediate danger as Veronica. Yeah. It doesn't seem like, which was one of my story issues where I'm like, hmm, if I were Michelle Rodriguez, I might say, no, thank you. I'm not interested. Yeah. But.

I was like, the whole time I kept thinking, I was like, does that seem like as pressing for you? So I was like, I can't, if like, if they're interested, I could like like not die i'd be like you know i'm good right the financial security i feel like that like that is enough to like get you into the premise and all of that but but yeah as the movie was going on and it was like oh my god all these women cut like i know that they're not going to die because movie but like the stakes are extremely high for what kind of is like michelle rodriguez is like well i don't want to say i didn't do this because feminism i was like but then your kids wouldn't have a parent right she does have children which you would think maybe she'd be like i can't get into this very risky dangerous heist because I might die. But I did buy that she and Alice were motivated enough to do it because of their very precarious financial situation.

So I don't know. Right. No, that makes sense. Yeah. So anyway, the three of them get to work on planning the heist. They need guns. They need a van. They have a blueprint, but they don't know where this house is. So there's a lot that they have to acquire and figure out. So they get to

work on that. Meanwhile, the Mannings intimidate some people that Veronica knows, basically trying to figure out what she's up to. They kill Bash, her driver. So now they have to find a... That's the football murder scene. That's the football murder scene. I think that was my favorite Daniel Kaluuya campy murder scene. Oh. I have a whole kind of spiel about that, which we'll get to.

Interesting. Yeah, interesting choices were made. But the bottom line is that they now have to find a new getaway driver, which, Jamie who would know a thing or two about driving mrs fast and furious i was uh and then they have her character i feel like they like that had to have been intentional that whenever someone is like we need a driver it's only michelle rodriguez being like we need a drivers and cars i'm like yeah. We love an internet cinematic universe. She is car canon. They need a crossover film to bring these two worlds together.

The Widows would fit right in in the Fast and Furious expanded universe, I feel. I think the Rochelle Rodriguez car cinematic universe. Yeah. I know. That could be a thing. Okay, so then we get a reveal that harry rawlings is still alive he had faked his death and it turns out that he's been having an affair with amanda the widow who hasn't been showing up and he is sticking around for now to i think take the money that Veronica is planning to steal yeah is that what's that I I think so that was a little calm like where there were that twist was I was very impressed

with the twist I just didn't see it coming but then I was like wait a second huh where like Jack Mulligan is involved they're on a a boat. Carrie Coon's involved. You're like, wait a second. What's the end goal here? And then it didn't really become story relevant. Yeah, I was like, at first when he revealed it, I was like, okay. I was like, I was surprised.

But then they got to the boat and I was like, how have no one, so no one's aware of this. How was he able to get him? I was like, that was right. I was like like this is a little in the distant now yeah i also am unclear about so the initial job that goes wrong is them stealing from jamal manning like on behalf of jack mulligan but then harry's next job was stealing from jack mulligan on behalf of Jack Mulligan. But then Harry's next job was stealing from Jack Mulligan on behalf of someone. I don't know.

Yeah. I feel like Harry, Harry doesn't vote. Like I feel like he doesn't care who wins or who loses, but yeah, like I, I, I don't know.

Maybe a listener will like point something out and there's something very clear that I wasn't seeing, but involving the politicians on top of like that it just felt like a hat on top of a hat and i got confused and then again it's like all i guess technically all you really need to know is that harry's alive and he was cheating on veronica yeah but it was yeah it was a little confusing. I agree. We also get a flashback where we learn about Harry and Veronica's son, Marcus. And we learn that he was pulled over and then shot to death by cops. Yeah. We cut back to the present. The widows figure out where the blueprints are for,

a.k.a. the house that they plan to break into, and it turns out to be Jack Mulligan's house. Then Linda, a.k.a. Michelle Rodriguez, she's like, we need a driver, and then she finds a driver. I mean, who else is going to do it? Vin Diesel? He's not in the movie. She recruits her babysitter, Belle, played by Cynthia Erivo, to be their getaway driver. And she and Veronica scope out Jack's house. They do a little reconnaissance type stuff.

Then it is time for the heist. It is the same night as the debate between Jack Mulligan and Jamal Manning. The women get to the house. They make their way in. They grab the five million dollars. Tom Mulligan, a.k.a. Robert Duvall, tries to stop them. They shoot him and kill him. In a death that no one has ever cared about less in the entire right we're like good riddance you're like i was like okay yeah we're like you racist piece of shit that's just a fringe benefit to this heist is that we killed the worst character i also get She was like, get the man off me. She was like, move him. Yeah. Bye.

So they kill him, but then Alice gets shot in the process. They have to kind of scramble to get away. Jatem hijacks their van as they're getting away. But then they follow him in another vehicle. They crash into him. They get the money back. And it seems like they've successfully pulled off the heist. They drop Alice off at the ER.

And then Veronica goes back to, like, whatever garage warehouse place is their rendezvous point. But who shows up but Harry Rawlings. And he's there to take the money she stole and she's like you fucking bastard and he's about to shoot her but she shoots and kills him first great moment as she should yeah and then we tie up some loose ends with bell and linda And then the movie ends with Veronica running into Alice who survived her gunshot. It's implied that it's several weeks or months later. They share a little moment where Veronica is like, how are you doing? Cinema. And also, Alice has learned to drive at that point, because we learned earlier in the movie that she didn't know how to drive.

But then we see her getting into the driver's seat of a car. So it's like, I guess Alice learned to drive. Good for her. Full arc. An amazing arc. That's the story. So let's take a quick break and then we will come right back to discuss. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered.

There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price.

Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East.

That's right, the queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhard in you. Oh my God, I would love it. I have to watch Lost.

Oh, you have to. No, I know. I'm so behind. Katherine Hanken's thing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love a ballad.

I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person? I got to hawk this slalom, Luge. Not hawk the slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous.

Yee, my slok, you hollum. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions. Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed?

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and we're back where shall we start i kind of want to get uh i'm tempted to get the stuff that we didn't like out of the way first or the more critical elements and then we can kind of move into the stuff that was fun oh can i start yes please yeah go ahead i have a gripe i think it's the second act where michelle ricketts character linda she's she's going she's going to go and she's kind of um she's going to go visit the man to go to go steal the um the prince kind of and so she's and so she's pretending basically um to have visit the man to go to go steal the um the prince kind of and so she's got and so she's pretending basically um to have known this man's wife and then he kind of and then he kind of figures out that that she doesn't um and then she kind of reveals you know that she's lost her

husband and then they like oddly like make out and i was like how did this this isn't really this isn't advancing the plot i don't and then at first i was like oh i was like oh did this this isn't really this isn't advancing the plot i don't i'm not at first i was like oh i was like oh she's doing this to like fake him out to get the blueprint but then i realized wait or is it like face value and they just like awkwardly made out like and then it kind of seemed out of character because i was like would she do that and i was like and i was like how this didn't do anything going forward so we're just sitting here and this is awkward. And I was like, this is a waste of time. I almost like forgot that that even happened.

Yeah, that was an interesting moment that I felt like that could have been something more exploratory of like grief and all this other stuff. But then it just kind of ended up being confusing and like whatever it's it's not like people don't trauma bond over certain life events and things get weird sometimes like that definitely happens i'm not opposed to seeing that in a movie but you're totally right michael michelle where it's like it didn't advance the plot at all and then it to me kind of came off as like they were just having michelle rodriguez's character like use her like womanly wiles to like advance the plot in a way i don't know i feel like yeah there were i feel like there were better options there

on how to or it's like if you're going to make that choice then like like you're saying like have it have more consequence and actually explore it versus like just this very bizarre i mean it's like it didn't even come up in the summary because it's so kind of like exactly that could have happened in so many different ways yeah yeah every time i've seen this movie my reaction is always like huh because then i expect the scene to keep going a little bit. And then for him to be like, okay, here, we kissed, so I'll help you out. Which also, I guess that would have weird implications too, probably. That would be kind of lazy too. Yeah. It's so bizarre. bizarre yeah so i guess i'm more fine that it cut well narratively it's weird that it doesn't go anywhere but if it was that she was like well i'm going to seduce like basically exploit right the grief i feel about my husband to manipulate and seduce this man like that would also yeah have

been weird and probably not great it's like who among us hasn't made out with a rando when they were sad about something but it was just like the way it was introduced was like yeah i felt the same way caitlin where you're like huh but then it never comes back so i don't know so shrug one thing that stuck out to me i had a few things with this movie that felt just i don't know and it's like it is nitpicky because overall the movie is super enjoyable i'm'm so glad. Like I will absolutely be watching it again. In terms of like the political side of it, there were some parts of the Jack Mulligan, Jamal Manning conflict that I thought were like so well executed and so well done. And a lot of it was like in the cinematography where there's that like amazing shot where you're

watching Jack Mulligan leave the 18th district and drive to his fucking McMansion that's talking about how little he cares like I love it that's so that's brilliant like that might be that might be my favorite scene in the movie I just I think it's that that tracking shot and you can't see them and you're just hearing the dialogue as they're moving forward i just i was like it's brilliant yeah and it's like once you realize where that's going it's amazing and it's like so you know obviously like such so unfortunately something that happens in local like in local and national politics constantly and And I thought it was so well executed. I guess the thing that I, that kind of chafed me with that plot line

was I appreciate and I totally like how the movie and the script really gets into this, whatever, Kennedy-esque Chicago family that are just like these rich white guys that are clinging on to power. And I mean, the Robert Duvall character in some ways is like a cartoonish example of the like extreme lengths that these kind of legacy white families, what they'll do to hold on to power.

And I wish that we got that same amount of attention to detail with the mannings because i feel like we got a lot of information about the mulligans i felt like you really understood what the movie was trying to say about that like that kind of political dynasty and i wish that there was because we spend a lot of time with jamal manning and with Jatem. Jatem, I think. I just kept being like, Daniel Kaluuya. But with those brothers. But I feel like you don't find out as much about them as you do.

Like, I felt like I knew way more about the Mulligans than I did about the Mannings. And I wish that that had been more of an even-handed plot line. Because I loved, I mean, I'm very interested in your thoughts on the murder scenes that kind of are taken out. Because at first I wasn't sure where to fall in it. And I went to watch just some interviews with Steve McQueen to see like what his kind of motivation was with those. And once it became clear that he's like, oh, I'm doing like like these are godfather this is

my godfather scene i was like oh okay like once i made that connection it made more sense to me but i still feel like you know with the godfather you know a shitload about that family and so it's like when those murder scenes take place you thoroughly know who those characters are what their motivations are and then you see something really fucked up. And I feel like the Mannings didn't get that. I don't know. What did y'all think? I felt like a lot of the impact of that has a lot to do with Daniel's performance, but it's not necessarily because of the writing. And so I don't feel like, I feel like it could have been more impactful if, like you said, if you knew about their motives and i thought about i feel like after the first scene after we

after we first meet him when he's first meeting um the confederate character you don't he kind of says a little bit beforehand after him and daniel's character are kind of talking about his motivation to kind of run but after that you don't really see or hear a lot about about about how about how he's kind of feeling as it's progressing really or really like anything about his backstory and so i was like i was like visually this is great but i don't feel as connected as i could if i knew why this was happening totally yeah there's a scene pretty early on between the two brothers where jatem which by the way there's a funny joke where

isn't that like French for I love you yeah I guess it would be more pronounced like Je Jatem but that's what that's what Jack Mulligan thinks Jatem is saying when he's introducing himself because then he says I love you too oh I didn't even pick up on that i didn't even notice and then daniel kaluya is just like what but um anyway jitem is talking to his brother and he's like why do you even want to get into politics and then jamal cites well yeah i mean an alderman makes a whatever salary per year and jitem's like well we make that in a week, implied that like, their kind of like criminal activity was way more lucrative. And then he's saying, well, yeah, but you stand to make a lot more money with different contracts and, you know, like building developments

and blah, blah, blah, this stuff. And when that happens, people come after you with cameras and microphones versus before when, when we were doing what we were doing, people were coming after us with guns. And I'm 37, like, I don't want that life anymore. So it's established that part of Jamal's motivation is he kind of like wants to quote unquote, straighten out, or like, you know, live a more virtuous life, I guess, which is hilarious to think of as a politician right you're like yeah sure the city council really doing the good work right but um I mean and that's like really interesting insight and I wish we then got more information like that but yeah as far as I can remember there wasn't much else in the way of that type of characterization for the Mannings no and I was kind of surprised because it's like it is such a rich setup and I feel like especially like Jamal and Jatem are such compelling characters and both played by fucking unbelievable actors and then there's not enough backstory given to really like i felt like bring

those characters to have the impact that they could have and should have the other main gripe i had with this movie revolves around the character of bobby welsh he is the character who owns the bowling alley he is a friend slash associate of Harry Rawlings. He seems to know about the various robberies that he pulls off. The character uses a wheelchair, but the actor, Kevin J. O'Connor, does not. So another example of an able-bodied actor playing a disabled character. Just high disabled actors. It just, they exist.

They're there. Like, it can't be that much of a struggle. I just, why? It's not hard. Couldn't be easier. They're out there. And then the other thing with this character is that we see him being brutalized in a way that is very specific to the character's disability because he is shoved out of his wheelchair. He is then stabbed in the legs several times by Jatem

because Jatem knows that he can't feel it because he's paralyzed from his waist down. It's a very long, drawn out out scene and i guess the function of this scene is to just show how relentless and dangerous jetem is but we already know that because we've seen him we've seen him shoot a guy in the face people he made yeah i mean he was making those two guys freestyle and then killed them mid freestyle like we know that he is d t k he's down to kill it felt unnecessarily long and every time i watch it yeah i have to just skip it i'm like i can't it just it feels unnecessarily cruel and i'm like i'm not i'm not gonna sit here and i'm not gonna sit here and and watch this. I can't.

Yeah. I can't do it. Totally. Especially, it feels, I think it might be a trope at this point in media where a disabled character is very unnecessarily brutalized. And then I was foreshadowing this earlier, but the scene where Jamal comes in and like his guys kill Bash. Compare this scene with the way that the Bobby Welsh character is brutalized to the Bash scene. Because all the violence in the Bash getting killed scene is implied.

Off screen. It happens off screen because then you pan over to Jatem watching football and you only like hear the violence but you don't see it so like just that dichotomy of like we see a long scene of a character with a disability being brutalized versus in that very specific way yeah yes yeah versus the able-bodied character that happens off screen and that just felt very unnecessary and gross and didn't like it i think also about me is if it if it felt like the attack for the disabled character felt felt very specific to that disability and then and then to keep showing it over and over on camera it felt like it kind of taking away the dignity from the character

as opposed to this able-bodied character and giving him the dignity of not having us watch it i was just like yeah that was really unnecessary right yeah and i mean and it's even from i mean i feel like the more you get into it is like even from a story perspective those two choices feel very pointed because you would think bash is a character that we know much better so the impact of seeing him get killed on screen would theoretically be greater than watching bobby a character we barely know right be brutalized for in a much longer scene like you were both saying and so it does kind of come down to i don't know i mean it's i it's hard because it's like i don't want to come down hard on this movie but like that choice you're totally right i mean it's it's very very pointed

and it doesn't even make it it makes no story sense there's no there's no real argument for any of it to happen yeah my last okay so this of, I guess, gets us into what we will probably be talking about a lot more, which is the widows. So let's let's get into widows. I. OK. I was genuinely I read. I watched the whole movie through was taken by little notes. And by the end of the movie let me know if I'm off here if I'm being like overly picky I felt like the widows did not know each other well enough I was not like they weren't friends ever and that is not really a Bechdel cast style criticism I feel like it's more of a story criticism for me

where I read a really good piece from a vice writer named Amira Mercer who did kind of a comparative study between Widows and Set It Off, a movie that we've covered on the show and is so good. And it's, you know, an all-female heist. I love that movie. It's, it's incredible

and is dealing with some I mean, it's definitely not a one to one comparison. But I don't know, as I was just reading her kind of comparative essay between the two movies, I was like, Oh, yeah, part of I mean, there's so many things that make set it off a compelling movie to watch. But a lot of it is like the relationships between the women performing the highest and how their relationships grow and change over the movie i felt like it's just like so well done and so when as things continue to happen you really feel it and i didn't quite feel that kind of like connection between the widows where they're definitely like their relationships develop. But then there were some relationships that felt kind of forced to me or like they didn't totally make sense or I don't know.

I just I this is maybe just like a personal taste thing. But I'm like, I wish that I understood how they felt about each other a little more. It felt a little vague to me. No, I feel the same way in that. Yeah, I agree that one of the most compelling things about Set It Off is the relationship and honestly, any kind of like get the team together and pull a job kind of movie. Yeah. You usually get a lot of tension and intrigue and theme and comic relief. And a lot of the things that like make a story great from the relationship

between the characters. And we obviously see them interact quite a bit, although there is an awful lot of screen time dedicated to like Jack Mulligan and other characters who I don't care about and I hate right but I was like yeah I would have liked to see more interaction between the widows and just more screen time dedicated to the way those relationships develop and yeah it felt like there was a lot of like i mean and again it's like it's a romp it's a move like i get it but but there was a lot of like i feel like the main thing you got out of them talking was kind of surface level

class discussion which is which is worthwhile and i'm glad that it happened but it sort of just felt like some of the only interactions between certain pairs in the um in the widow's universe was like oh okay so Alice and Linda they're both working class and so they're gonna have a three-line exchange about how they're working class and they feel like Veronica doesn't get it and then you don't really get much more with those characters they just sort of establish like we have this thing in common but then it doesn't really i don't know i just wish that like some of those issues got more explored and it felt like some things were like stated but then not really followed through on i don't know i feel like a lot a lot i feel like a lot of the

class age i feel like we're discussed more with the political storyline, I feel like, as opposed to with the actual widows. And I was like, oh, I thought it was interesting. I like that he was able to handle both. But I was like, but the primary story is the widows. So why not? Or why not have them converge more? That's a great point. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Because it's like, I mean, it's not like the characters that are established wouldn't be able to like very easily have those conversations but you're totally right it's like we see jack and jamal have those discussions more in depth than we see some of the widows have those i totally agree with that and i feel like there were i feel like we got to know Veronica and Alice well and then the other two women we did not really find very much out about to the point where I was like their arcs weren't didn't feel like they were as impactful because I mean it's like what do we really know about Michelle Rodriguez's character other than she's now a single mom of two who used to own a business but now doesn't? That's kind of it?

She doesn't really have any depth beyond that. And it would almost kind of be useful if she, maybe if she were Wanda Mitchell, but was still kind of more involved and had screen time. But she doesn't really have screen time either. And then they kind of have her bringing another character. Belle also doesn't really get dimension. So I'm like, you had one character that doesn't get dimension, bringing another character that doesn't get dimension. And so they're just kind of floating. I thought it was interesting the way that they had Belle and Rhonda kind of face off in a way it when she's introduced and she kind of asserts herself and is like preaching directly i was like oh okay

interesting like contrast but but then she gets out the car and just kind of leaves and i was like oh so she's gone so you're just so we're just we're not gonna explore okay all right right it's like cynthia arrivo is like so unbelievably talented and but like her character comes in 45 minutes into the movie I think and then it's like oh we're gonna have to play catch up we've gotta like we've gotta get her really involved if she's gonna you know but but then it's like they don't really follow through nope on that where I really liked how that sequence with her getting to the second job was composed and like that was another really cool cinematography moment where she gets home and she sees her daughter for a second but then she gets a call from it turns out Michelle Rodriguez

saying hey I need a sitter and she's in such financial straits that she has to run to catch the bus to get to a second job. And I was like, that was such a well-executed sequence and sets her character and her kind of predicament up. But then where does it go? Like, I feel like- No follow through. Yeah, her character deserved a more complete arc and like more relationships with the women she was around.

And it just felt like, I don't know. I mean mean i guess that there are kind of two movies going on inside of this movie which i'm not opposed to but it's like the movie is called widows i would like to know about the widows yeah i have to imagine that part of that is a byproduct of the movie being adapted from a TV series. It's adapted from a 1983 British TV series, also called Widows, from I think like writer, creator Linda LaPlante. Yeah. And that was a several episode narrative i haven't seen it and i don't know much about the series so i don't know exactly what was like lifted from that and put into this adaptation or you know what was left out but i i wonder if some of what feels kind of condensed and

it's just like not thoroughly developed is because there's like actually more story than a feature-length film has time to tell i don't know i'm not gonna let them quite get away with that oh yeah i don't think it's an excuse but i think it's maybe like a reason i did a little bit of research on it i did did not watch the series. I was unable to find it. But I did. I watched a bunch of interviews with Steve McQueen. And I guess that he had really wanted to adapt this series specifically. I guess it's something he saw when he was interview but um he was really compelled by the miniseries when he was a kid because i think it's like equally hit upon in that 80s miniseries that a lot of the reason that the widows are able to get away with this heist is because they're underestimated by everyone around them and because they're women because they're women and Steve McQueen gave an interview where he was like and I really connected to that because I was a young

black kid growing up in London and I felt like I was also constantly underestimated and so it was a story that really resonated with me even though it wasn't like a one-to-one thing and so I thought like his connection to the story was really cool and that Gillian Flynn was brought in was like also interesting and but I don't really like yeah I don't I don't know I it seems like I mean the original source material seems pretty different in that like the the basic premise is the same but steve mcqueen and jillian and gillian flynn have changed the setting they have changed the time period they've changed a lot of stuff so i feel like they had already taken enough creative updating and liberties to kind of course correct some of this stuff yeah that and i mean it's like we don't i mean who knows the kind of studio notes

movies like heist movies go through and any movies go through so i'm not saying it's like all on them but there were certain things that was like they've already changed a lot about the source material so why not give half of the widows a story like i don't know yeah i don't know um let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for more discussion. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere,

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And we're back. Should we get into what works more effectively in this movie? Such as it's fun and I like it. I suppose it is a romp, but it's a way darker, more serious romp than I usually associate with romps. It's a serious romp. It's a heady romp. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I find it really cool

and compelling that there's a lot of commentary being made throughout the movie on things like class, race and gender, because a lot of heist movies do not bother with any kind of social commentary. It's usually just a bunch of white guys who decide to steal money for sometimes no reason, or sometimes it's because, you know, George Clooney wants to have a dick measuring contest with Andy Garcia, for example. That is, I mean, I am still waiting for that movie where a diverse group of women steal a bunch of shit for no reason. Like, I feel like that is deserved because it's like I was thinking about like this movie and Ocean's 8 where it's like their reasons for stealing are still virtuous enough that they're not like evil people. It's like let

the women be evil just like no one asks why George Clooney wants this money can't Viola Davis just steal two million dollars just let her do it I don't know but this I like that this movie does what it does I totally agree and I think also I think what I will say

I do kind of like that they're not friends in a way I kind of that was one that I thought say, I do kind of like that they're not friends in a way. That was one thing I thought was cool. I feel like a lot of female team members now, it's like, oh, they're all somehow interconnected and they're all friends. I think I like that this high school, I felt like was the most grounded reality. I felt like sometimes women just aren't friends, but they do come together in the end for survival which i thought which i which i do like and then i and then i do also think i i i do think i i do think the crime was kind of heavy but i do feel he was able to handle them both

without dropping the ball on either really right so at the wrong time i thought i thought those are definitely my favorite aspects. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and then we also see them fumble and Michelle Rodriguez is like, what the hell am I supposed to do with this blueprint? And Veronica's like, by being smarter than you are being right now. So it's cool that we see them come together under these high stakes circumstances and have to figure it out along the way right and have like realistic conflict right because like even though this is what like their husbands did professionally like

they are not trained skilled heisters thieves etc that training sequence is also one of my favorite parts of the movie because she just veronica just sounds like this really irritated like gym teacher and they're just like we hate you and i'm just like there was some i don't know if either of you watched i didn't i watched like the first two or three seasons but how to get away with murder but there were some moments in this movie that I was like, oh, this is like full on Annalise Keating moments where it's just like Viola Davis is like, why are you incompetent? Which is basically that entire show. Exactly.

Oh my God. My favorite, one of my favorite exchanges is when Veronica is like, here's $2,000, get some guns. And Alice is like, guns? Where am I going to get guns? And Veronica's like, this is America, a.k.a. you can get guns like everywhere. Figure it out. They're literally any corner.

Yikes. That was also one of my favorite scenes, I think, was the gun scene. I thought also it was really interesting, kind of, I feel like to explore Alice's character, I think, also was really... When she, like, approaches that woman and, like, pretends to be, I think, a mail-order bride. And the little girl is like, Mommy, you always said a gun is a girl's best friend. And you're like, oh, no, this woman this woman is like indoctrinating her young daughter into like toxic gun culture already. But then also you think about like,

well, what is their background and personal history? And like, what motivations would that mother have for her daughter to want to be able to defend herself? Which I feel like also connects directly to Alice's character who is like there's so much time uh put into like the various ways in which Alice has been traumatized to the point where it's like I felt I felt a lot of Gillian Flynn coming through with that Alice character where and this isn't even really a criticism but just like this is a subject matter that Gillian Flynn seems to take on frequently in her work which is like mother-daughter trauma

and like toxic cycles between mothers and daughters specifically which I think is kind of an underexplored topic in media in general where it's like we make the joke on this show that like every movie is about fathers and sons but with Alice it's like the the kind of like core of her character is that she was abused and manipulated by her mother and also by her husband and like has this gigantic kind of crisis of self-esteem and confidence and sense of self because she has been so controlled for her entire life in a way that is like I mean it's it's almost like so much that I'm like did we have enough time in this movie to really address all of this like that scene with her mother was fucking brutal. Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, it's, so this is like kind of where in this movie, I get to another point where it's like, this was going somewhere, but it felt like there wasn't enough time or whatever it was to like, follow through on the seriousness of what was set up where i guess like it it almost felt like

i don't know like almost like a little bit girl power feminism for alice by the end to be like i'm my own woman now and i'm at school and everything is great and it just i mean it's very movie i guess because they set her up with severe trauma and then they're like and then she went to college and made one friend and you're like well that okay like feels a little undercooked to me but I don't know I I appreciate again like you're saying Caitlin like the fact that this was even tackled in the heist genre is huge yeah yeah i i think a lot of the effective commentary i mean i actually kind of appreciated that it it didn't dwell on the whole like well we're women but we can still do this there's only one there's a very trailer scene where viola davis is like we have the balls

they don't think we have the balls to do this you're like all right all right we get it yeah yeah yeah she says like we have to move and think like a team of men the best thing we have going for us is being what we are implied women because no one thinks we have the balls to pull this off which I think is like an appropriate amount of discussion about that. If it had gone much more beyond that, I would have like that would be a little eye rolly to me. It's like, yeah, we know that would almost feel it was like a movie directed at men to like remind men. Yes, women are capable. Yes, we can do shit. Like, look at her with the gun and kicking like but because the movie doesn't

dwell on that it just to me made it more accessible for me at least right you know I was like okay this I you're you're speaking my language sure um and then I wanted to share a quote from Viola Davis uh from that same interview I think that you were referencing jamie from the new york times right by reggie yes uh who says uh viola davis says about the movie quote this movie is a realistic journey into women gaining ownership of their of their lives and not at the expense of who they are the feminine energy and the vulnerability are still there but i think it's a fantasy and every woman to do something bold and brash and not nice to bust out of themselves and this and social norms to get at some level of authenticity i think that's what attracts people i know that's what attracts me

love end quote i know uh and that is largely what attracts me to this movie as well. Like what compels me about it. Yeah. And then in addition to that kind of like that gender commentary, I think there's also effective class commentary and race commentary embodied a lot in the particularly like the race conversation in like the jack mulligan versus jamal manning and that was another thing i also i also i also kind of thought about kind of when you're looking at the race if you look at kind of conversation between jack and his dad he's he's he comes off as the more moral um better human kind of um the more moral between the two and then you kind of oppose with him and jamal and then he's kind of and and then he's the kind of

the less moral the more evil i guess i guess but but also um but also neither of them are also like morally right and so i love that the film both both comments i love that it comes on a couple of things one kind of um kind of because then then it also gives jack kind of credit i guess for being like a kind of basic um we're not going for like basic um basic dignity as a white man as opposed to kind of his his market to his father but but then they're both kind of morally wrong totally i guess if that makes sense yeah i thought that that uh one of the things that that storyline got to pretty effectively was like some i mean it's not like dwelled on in any significant way but like almost generational commentary where yeah i

feel like it's pretty clearly telegraphed that the mulligans the father and the son no one gives a shit about the people in the 18th district. They don't care. They're more obsessed with keeping power than anything else. They don't give a fuck. But the ways that they don't give a fuck are very indicative of their generation where Robert Duvall's character is just openly racist, like completely mask off, horrifying to watch and listen to. And then Colin Farrell's character is almost like this more Gen X iteration of that same racism and classism and dismissal of his constituents. But he's like more polite about it. And he doesn't say the quiet part loud like it's

it's very I don't know like there were moments in that storyline that were really difficult to watch but in a way that it's like I think they were being pretty effective in the way that it's like well and the and the bleakest part of it is by the end whatever whatever, I mean, Jack Mulligan wins on the sympathy vote because Robert Duvall was murdered. And so if you look at it one way, it's like, we know that Jack Mulligan doesn't actually want this job. He doesn't care. He feels so bad for himself and he feels cursed by having to do this job. But ultimately, it's the 18th district who loses, because they're subjected to yet another term of nepotism white guy who doesn't give a shit

and is just completely phoning it in. And it's like that political cycle is, I mean, it's such a real thing and very, I don't know. Like, I feel like there there are some ways where like that area of the story was so effectively done and yeah then it was like but I wish that I don't know I was trying to think of was like I wish that like one of the widows worked in politics more meaningfully or there was more connection between those two storylines that like fuse them together

because at different times it felt like it was separate that was what i i remember kind of in that scene between jack and veronica which he kind of goes in and kind of pretends that it's kind of something to do with school district and she kind of is asking for help i wish it said her job had somehow been involved in maybe working with him in some way because if you can make her the main character half a direct have that be the direct link i feel like that would have been more effective yeah yeah i well because veronica is like a teacher is like a former member of the teachers union yeah something along those lines which we only learn about through dialogue and i'm like oh that would have been interesting to explore more.

Sometimes I'm just like, oh, maybe this movie would have worked better if it was also just a readapted TV series. And that way we would like get more of a... Yeah, there's just more time to explore. Yeah. I think so. But... I remember the first time I was watching,

I was like this would be a really good like two-part pilot for for sure i was like this would work really well yeah i was like as a pilot yeah because i guess it's like our main criticisms are like things that we wish we had more time to explore but they just made the cuts they made yeah another one of another example of that is the kind of I wouldn't even call it a storyline because it's so fleeting but the detail you learn about Veronica and Harry's son Marcus who was shot and killed by cops because they racially profiled him. And that is then kind of followed up on because there's this kind of ongoing tension

in flashbacks between Veronica and Harry where she says, he's like, don't make me feel like my only regret is having a child with you. And she responds with, maybe you should have had a child with someone else because then he would still be alive. Which when we get the flashback of his murder, we realize, oh, he was killed because of the color of his skin.

And had he been a white man, that wouldn't have happened. And so like Veronica is harboring, seems to be harboring this guilt revolving around that. And then later when harry shows up at the very end she like calls him out she's like you're such a coward like you've been having this affair and now you have this son your news your new son your new white happy family and it's this like undercurrent in the movie but i i feel like that could have been something that was explored further. And I would have liked to just like kind of learned more about that and how that's affecting Veronica.

I agree. And I kept thinking about, I thought it was because I feel like that problem comes with a lot of history kind of with femininity and the kind of the disadvantages and the ways that black women aren't offered that kind of femininity and the way that white women are the ideal femininity and the ways that we're often not seen as women or not offered the kind of advantage or safety that other women get because of femininity. And then having that in your head and then seeing your husband then move on and then seeing your husband move on with a white woman,

the affair being bad enough, but then to see him choose that over you and to really kind of make the guilt even worse, I felt like that was a really interesting point. But it could have been expanded a lot more than it was because there's because there's so much history with that right absolutely yeah i i was sort of wondering what the script and the story gained by withholding that information for so long because it seemed like like you're saying, Michael Michal, there is so much historically and story-wise to explore there. But by the time you learn what their history is and who their son was and what actually happened, there's almost no runtime left to do anything but kill Liam Neeson.

Which is like, I feel great about us killing Liam Neeson. Like, great. Kill Liam Neeson which is like I'm I feel great about us killing Liam Neeson like great kill Liam Neeson all day long but but yeah it felt like yeah the the movie didn't give enough time to effectively explore what you were describing and it feels like that character like Veronica is so well set up that to withhold that information for so long I feel like it almost does a disservice to her character. And then kind of back to your point, Jamie, about like kind of the generational differences between Jack Mulligan and his father. I think another example of that is that program,

that initiative that Jack Mulligan started, the MWOW, the Minority Women Owned Work initiative, where it seems, based on what you know about him, it's obviously an extremely performative thing that also he is, he's basically exploiting the people of this district because you find out that they loaned money to these black women to like start their own businesses but then these women are now like beholden to these loans that they're clearly struggling to pay back because that's something that we see in the hair salon that bell works in yeah because her her boss the owner of this salon is having confrontations and and arguments with this man who we understand is coming to collect on this debt and so basically

it's like this you know this jack mulligan guy being like look at me look what i'm doing i'm empowering these women of color to be business owners and that's generating revenue and that revenue is going back into the neighborhood. But then when you actually learn about the real circumstances of that initiative, where it's all about, you know, this performative gesture, this exploitation. That he's making money off of too. Exactly. Yeah. So, yeah, I thought that was all an effective examination of that just type of very corrupt, performative, political, whatever dealings that might seem like they're helping marginalized communities, but is actually exploitative. I thought that was effective. Yeah. communities but is actually exploitative i thought that was effective yeah and i i liked that again it's just like yeah the more we talk about this it's like oh there's so much

like really timely and like well set up premises here that we just like don't have enough time to explore where it's like not even as much a criticism of the movie of like i think the more we talk about it the more i think you're right michael michelle where it's like this should be just like a limited series where we have the real estate to like like really examine this i would have loved it yeah it would and i like i mean it's they they i feel like the the screenwriters are doing their best there where it's like you do see like there's that one reporter who i appreciate seeing like him just i don't know i've seen stuff like this happen in real time where it's like a city counselor is spewing campaign point bullshit everyone knows he's full of shit but there's only like one

reporter who's like wait what uh and just watching the cityor ignore them and be like, oh, this is so annoying when people acknowledge that I'm a liar. Like that whole thing is like, it's so. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's good. And then but then it's also like we don't get quite enough of it because I like that. I mean, that was another great scene for Cynthia Erivo's character where she's talking with, I need to remember the name of the character who owns the hair salon. And she's pushing back and being like, well, that doesn't sound right.

Like this isn't, you know, he's basically profiting off of pretending to help us when he's not helping us. He's helping himself. And the owner of the salon kind of replies with like, yeah, I know. But what else am I supposed to do? Like, what other options are available to me, which is a huge conversation that, again, it's like, it's so wild in a positive way that this conversation is being had in a heist movie. And I also wish that there was more time to explore it and also, you know, just get to know Cynthia Erivo's character better in general. Totally. I mean, the catharsis of that salon owner struggling and acknowledging like, well, I couldn't have gone. A bank wouldn't have given me the loan

to start my own business you know and then to have money paid back to her because bell takes a part of her split from the heist and gives it to the salon owner so like just the catharsis of having that debt paid back to her or like getting that money to start a business without, you know, having these loan sharks basically like breathing down her neck, you know, absolutely putting her in a position of being more financially secure.

And that money coming from the very man who exploited her to begin with is very cathartic. Yeah. Um, to begin with is very cathartic yeah um does anyone have any other thoughts about the film what were your thoughts kind of about all this kind of relation uh relationship kind of to sex work and and all of that oh that's a that's an excellent question i would be curious i almost want i wasn't able to find i was because so this i don't think came up a lot in the summary but um for listener reference if you have not seen the movie yet alice is pressured by her mother to become a sugar baby in order to

financially sustain herself and also presumably her mother to an extent after her husband dies in the heist and so for much of the movie we see alice is in a transactional sugar baby relationship with this david business guy. So I was hoping to be able, I was looking for a sex worker perspective on this storyline and I wasn't able to find one. So if, I mean, if we do have any listeners

who have insights into that, we would love, we're totally open to hearing it. And I wasn't, I don't know. I mean, my instinct there was that it was well-intentioned but possibly a little undercooked I felt like there there was kind of an element in at least with that guy Dave David vague rich guy where he was pretty emotionally volatile towards Alice where there were moments where he was very affectionate towards her and

she seemed to think that there might be a real relationship developing and then he would turn on her and be like this is a transaction for me and grows more and more volatile as the story goes on and it feels like I don't know I would be curious to know how much when Steve McQueen and Gillian Flynn were collaborating on this how much they spoke to sex workers versus used the idea of sugar baby to advance the character and get her to where they wanted her to be because I sort of felt like and again it's like I don't have experience in this realm but it almost it did feel to me a little bit like they were commenting more on the idea of a sugar baby as a means to an end versus any actual insight into sex work it felt it felt kind of judgmental to me um kind of but both both both to the filmmakers and kind of and also and

also all the characters around her it just kind of felt like everyone was kind of, it just kept being a plot point of basically, of her either not having a real job or not really being intelligent because as a reflection of being a sugar baby. And I was like, this feels a little off base here. Yeah, I have two thoughts about this. Number one is ready. Number one is I was trying to figure out if there was a distinction between the movie, whether or not it was passing judgment about this versus other characters in the narrative passing judgment.

Because, I mean, Veronica certainly is passing judgment because right I mean Veronica certainly is passing judgment as a character definitely yeah and I think maybe even correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like Michelle Rodriguez's character might also make some comment maybe it's just like about something she's wearing I think that there's comments it's not just I mean but with like yeah with Veronica I mean it's like a physical altercation. But yeah, I think that everyone is a little bit judgy about Alice's job. Right. So that's happening without question. As far as the movie and the crafters of this story passing judgment, I feel like that was happening to a definite lesser extent than some of the other characters passing judgment.

But I feel like it would have been more effective if the movie was actually coming at it completely objectively. I think it would have been helpful to have a different character, maybe Michelle Rodriguez's character, to say, like, do whatever you want. It's your life, your choice. Yeah, exactly. Good point. want. It's your life. Your choice. Yeah. Exactly. Good point. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know. And it also sort of sets up. Elizabeth Debicki. As an actor. To be the most heavily. Sexualized character. Yeah. In the movie.

Where. I mean she is. The only white woman. Of the widows. Right. And. And she's also. The woman that has a long lingering sex scene and these scenes of her in all these gowns. And it just, I don't know. It wasn't my biggest issue with the movie,

but it also just, there were some lingering like why was this and I and I I'm curious of like how much of that storyline was carried on from the miniseries or if this was completely an invention of these two writers I don't really know yeah and we'll never know because we simply won't and maybe even can't where do you find british tv from the 80s i i tried i really did try and i couldn't find it yeah but yeah i'm a little wary of that but my second thought about this is that it is a reminder to me that all of the men in the story are framed as being obstacles and or antagonistic forces for the widows, which I think is an interesting flip considering that in your average heist movie, which is, again, a bunch of men doing heists for reasons,

women are often framed as obstacles like just again to refer back to oceans 11 julia roberts you know brad pitt's all like she's a distraction danny ocean stop being distracted blah blah blah i still can't get over the fact that his name is danny ocean i've seen that movie so many times i'm like what the fuck his name is danny ocean i can't think of a worse name anyways it's ludicrous but um yeah so this david guy who alice gets involved with he like you said jamie gets increasingly like more and more volatile her deceased husband was physically abusive linda's husband was gambling away all of her money that she earned from running this gown store. It's a boutique, yeah.

Causing her to lose her business. Obviously, we talked about how Veronica's husband, Harry, was cheating on her. He's lying. He's faking his death. He tries to kill her, etc. Name a thing he didn't do wrong he really did every single thing he fucked up real bad um the men in the manning family the men in the mulligan family they are all posed as being antagonistic forces to the women i would say the only exception is bash the driver like he's he seems okay

good friend as far as i can tell and then he isn't okay because you know he's just yeah i that that's a really good point that i don't know i have such complicated feelings about it's not even specific to this movie but movies that it's so bizarre because it like the feeling and the sort of like movie energy that was coming to screens in the year after the me too movement started going versus being three years out and knowing kind of a little more about how that actually bore out and like the successes and failures that that movement has had it like watching this movie now is like and watching the trailer especially michael michelle you mentioned

the trailer and i remember being so fucking hyped on the trailer i loved the trailer it's like the most me too trailer ever where it's like we're gonna do it now and like it's very cathartic and exciting and and then but but then there's also like I can't quite describe what the feeling is but there's it makes me like a little bit sad and discouraged to watch that trailer now because it felt like there was all this positive energy and like with so many movements you're like yeah, we didn't solve that in a year. What were we thinking? Like, it was, I don't, it's hard to just, I don't, I don't really know exactly what I'm getting at here.

But I guess just the idea of like, there have been so many reversals of male driven plots, which this movie is in many ways. and i think that the ways that it does it and the subject matter it chooses to tackle is really smart it's well written it's certainly well acted like it's really cool and then there's also i don't know i mean there's certainly room for both of these sorts of movies but then there's some times where it's like is the only option to just flip it because i don't know in in this vice piece that again i want to shout out the writer amira mercer she was pointing out like with kind of the exception of set it off most women driven heist movies are reversals of male plots.

And she pointed out, and I've only seen Ocean's 8 once, and I didn't really like it very much, but how the women in Ocean's 8 are very defined in relation to characters who existed in Danny Ocean's life. And like, he's my little sister, this is but but but but like and it's all they exist in relation to men and that is true of the way I mean that's like widows like the title implies proximity to men which is a very true you know that it's like a reality that exists and then I also I'm just I don't know i want us to get

to a point where it doesn't need to be a flip of a movie we've seen before like like it should just be a story on its own yeah it also kind of makes you think about there was this this video i've watched the other day i don't know i think it might have been the take but they're talking about how how often things in the female gaze are just kind of flipping the male gaze, but objectifying men. And so how do we get past just the flip? What is film beyond that? And how do we get to a space of just a completely new space of just creating content that's beyond the flip of flipping? And how do we create it and what and what is that content yeah I yeah that's so well put yeah where it's

just like at what point with like flipping that gaze is like it was I don't know I like almost go back to my 2018 self where like all I wanted to see was like in movies women doing to oppressors what oppressors had done to them and like that was really cathartic and exciting and like felt like a release that was like needed but at some point it's like but that can't be the end game. You can't just flip patriarchy. That's ridiculous. Like, there's like, I don't know.

I just like, I don't know. Well, I've been to in my feelings this summer. Well, that we talk about this a lot where, I mean, progress is a process,

right? Yes, absolutely. And that with where's the merch? Where's the t-shirt? But it means that there are stepping stones. And we've covered a lot of movies on the show that we have commented that this feels like a stepping stone movie. This is like a step in the right direction. It's not perfect.

It's not nearly as amazingly intersectionally feminist as we are hoping it is. But it was very, you know, progressive for the time that movie came out or, you know, whatever the case. So, yeah, I think it's I don't think it's the end game is just like a gender flip, but it is like one of the steps in the process or at least just like process yeah where it's like widows does feel very much like how 2018 felt in a lot of ways where it's which is wild to say because it's so recent but it's like it is capturing so many ideas and catharsis and and just like beginning to discuss serious societal issues in a genre where you wouldn't normally even think about seeing that yeah i don't know i was thinking i think that year specifically i i think i think we were like halfway through his presidency and everyone kind

of wanted catharsis and it was it was like it was like it was the year of of like representation mattering and and everyone was so wanting to grab running to grab and kind of aspirational and it definitely feels steeped in that yeah yeah it's it's, even just yeah, like context historically was like, oh, this, this movie makes exact sense for the moment that it came out in. And it's, it is it's like, so well done. I mean, it's and Steve McQueen and Gillian Flynn, like that's such a cool collaboration to have even happened. it's awesome I think that Gillian Flynn if I'm not mistaken I believe that she is from Chicago which is I think why the setting was shifted there um I'm pretty yes okay so yeah she is she has lived in Chicago for many years so I think that that was why between her and Steve McQueen that it was like a British miniseries that Steve McQueen loved. And then they set it where Gillian Flynn lived. And like it just it's cool.

It's a really cool collaboration. Really? Totally. My one other question was also kind of because I don't think we talked about it. What was was I guess James K. J. Timm's, his two kind of, the other killing scenes, the one with Bash, kind of as he's watching football, and then also the freestyle rap scene. I was wondering kind of what y'all thought about those. I mean, just from a cinematic point of view, I'm always so shocked that it happens because we don't know who those characters

are when they're first introduced because we hadn't seen them before. We don't really understand the context that they exist in the story or what their role is. And it's not until partway into the conversation that Jatem is having, I think with other characters, is it that they are the ones who kind of let the robbers get away with the money or they were supposed to be like keeping an eye on the money and then they fucked up and that's why they were able to steal it. I think it was something along those lines, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, that was my understanding of it.

So they had like messed up and then they get punished for it by being shot in really brutal, especially the first shooting. Right, yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I was curious what everyone thought about that. I feel like those kinds of scenes are, like you're saying, Caitlin, they're always shocking to me because it's just like it's not a genre that I've ever been extremely invested in.

And it does like these godfather-y scenes where it's just like very dramatic executions has never really been for me. But I do. Yeah, I feel like the fact that these executions are done by a character who the movie isn't really letting us get to know, makes watching it feel worse, or like more exploitative, where it does sort of just feel like a torture porn situation because i feel like daniel kaluuya like you were saying earlier michael michelle like daniel kaluuya's performance is doing the heavy lifting there where like you can tell like he's trying my and then i watched an interview with him to sort of uh make sure that this was what he would he like he was trying to performance ways come from a place of like this is how he shows love and loyalty to his brother is by doing this which is like wow

daniel clu is so smart like that totally like hearing that i was like that totally comes through but that isn't really in the writing like he does that he brings that but and it does feel it feels kind of gross especially considering the conversation we had earlier where the way that these scenes are shot is very telling of it really it seems to really the the camera work kind of dwells more on the brutal murder of a disabled man. We see the two black men in this first scene to be executed very much on screen. Like there's nothing held back in that.

And then with white characters that we know all of a sudden the camera's a little shyer. And, and the fact that we don't really get the information we need with jamal and jatam seems to make it harder i don't know what did you think michael michelle even um i was totally agreeing i was even thinking a lot about one thing i also love i do love i think the sound design is also really interesting and and a lot of even certain scenes um the certain depths seem more seem seem louder and kind of more boastful when it comes to the

other stable characters or the black characters and and then and then and then music kind of swelling kind of you know in a softer way when it came to the light characters that was something i also noticed um so i and so i would also agree and so i feel like both the camera work and the sound design together kind of um there's an aspect of there but also in general i did but that was probably i do think that was a high point for me just in general i think that that the sound design was really was a high point but i do think there were certain spots where i was like this could have been handled better yeah yeah yeah because it's like i mean best case scenario those scenes could have i mean just been like holy shit mob scenes which i think is like what

they were trying to be but they were like yeah the details in the cinematography and like the character development or like lack thereof I guess made it a little tougher I don't know I also don't understand mob movies so I could be so very wrong either way it's uh that scene is always extremely jarring for me but um yeah because that's like the first because you get the you get the big explosion pretty early on when the the van explodes but that's the first moment of like really brutal like happening right in your face violence graphic violence kind of thing so yeah it's it's always like, oh, God. Daniel Kaluuya. Oh, my stars.

Oh, my stars. Why are you so mean? Does anyone have any other thoughts about the movie? I also really want to acknowledge the true star of this film, Miss Olivia. I just feel like a true star. Oh, my gosh. She helped find Harry, really brought us motivation. Just a star. Love her.

Oh, my gosh. Adorable. An icon. Yes. Absolutely. Does the movie pass the Bechdel test? Yes. Yes, it does. Here's my favorite pass. the movie pass the Bechdel test. Yes. Yes.

Here's my favorite pass. Well, well, it's not, we'll, we'll discuss how it's not quite a pass, but Alice says, why are you being such a bitch?

You're being a C word. Veronica, don't say that word to me, Alice. It's appropriate. You're being a C word. And then Veronica is like, you're just a stupid girl with nothing in your head. And then they slap each other.

They sure do. Yeah. We love melodrama. But I would argue that that conversation does not pass because this is Veronica slut shaming Alice for having sex with a guy only one month after her husband died so the context is still all about like her husband this new guy yeah yes but it is an interaction between women there is no denying that but no it does it does pass a lot the the

widows are planning the heist together talking talking a lot of logistics stuff, things that don't have anything to do with men. Shall we get to our ratings on the nipple scale? Yes. Let's do it. Our nipple scale is zero to five nipples based on how the movie fares from an intersectional feminist lens, I would give this, I think, four nipples. It's going to get some points docked simply because of a lot of what we talked about

in terms of things that the movie starts to examine or starts to explore that it doesn't, there's not quite enough time to fully explore it and then i feel like we're kind of like robbed of opportunities for more interesting commentary or yeah just uh a closer examination of what i think this movie is trying to do again i it it probably should have just been readapted, revitalized as another series. It's not that it doesn't work as a movie, but I think it doesn't work quite as well just because it feels like there's so much crammed into this already pretty long movie.

It's over two hours long. But yeah, there's different bits of characterization and commentary that I feel could have been handled more effectively had we been given more time with it, especially the relationships between the widows and how those grow and develop over the course of the story, especially with a character like Belle, who gets introduced so late into the game and we don't really learn anything about her. So yeah, that's my main gripe with the movie. So four nipples and I'll give one to each of the widows.

Woo-hoo. Wow. I'll meet you there. I'll meet one to each of the widows. Woo-hoo. Wow. I'll meet you there. I'll meet you there. Like 3.75 or 4. This movie is really fun to watch. And it also is. It's a heady romp.

It's a tone poem. And yet it's a romp. It's interesting. I would call it heady and heavy. Yes. Every H-E-A blank y is uh substitute any consonant it's that uh but yeah i i i really like this update on the format i love a steve mcqueen gillianian Flynn collaboration that was really cool I that the performances in this movie are like incredible like the cast like just I've watched a couple like roundtables with the

cast and you're like hold on this cast is ridiculous like it's so I like I feel like we didn't get to talk about Brian Tyree Henry very much and I just like he's incredible like he's so good I know he's not one of the widows and all the widows are. And I just like, he's incredible. Like he's so good. I know he's not one of the widows and all of the widows are incredible, but I was like, Brian Tyree Henry does needs an Oscar like yesterday. But anyway, he had an incredible year that year.

Yeah. He's yeah. Yeah. He's like, he had like a wild 2018. He was in like everything that year. Cause he was also, he's,

he's in, um, was into the spider verse that year because he voices also he's he's in um was into the spider verse that year because he voices miles's dad in that movie beale street yes yes he was beale street that year as well yeah he's oh my god i really like him what else was he in that year he was in oh i have no idea what that movie is he was in in a movie called Hotel Artemis. Oh, I remember that coming out. Yeah. Well, he was in it.

Whatever. Anyways. Good for him. So, yes, I like I totally agree with what you were just saying, Caitlin, and what you were saying earlier, Michael, Michelle, where this movie, you could argue maybe like bites off a little more than it can chew with the sheer number of issues it's trying to address where i don't know i mean ultimately i'm glad that it tries it we don't quite have the run time to meet every single arc but i mean the fact that it's a heist movie that addresses racial injustice

and class injustice and misogyny it tackles a hell of a lot in two hours and it all makes sense in the story and it's just it it comes together it's it's really good um most of the issues i have with this movie is just stories that it doesn't quite have the time to follow through on it's not really what they do that i have an issue with that's what they didn't have time to do i wish i mean we should have known more about the mannings we should have known more about michelle rodriguez and cynthia arrivo etc yeah so yeah i'll let's go for and i will also give a nipple a piece to the widows nice michael michelle what about you oh i'm also going to give it four um i you know kind of like you all said i everything everything that that they attempted i i really i really

appreciate and enjoyed it and it pretty i loved it as a more it's i'm really honest it's i think it was my favorite movie of that year i think also my my personal favorite heist movie um i just i think it's it's just it's it's really grounded i think i i think all the women feel like real women and and and they don't feel like archetypes of women for the sake of like feminism in a movie which is nice um totally and i love uh i love that all four of them are so specific in each of their backgrounds and and that they're all dealing with very specific marital problems. My graphs are the same that you all had.

I wish that the great things that they had given us kind of had more time to be able to kind of blossom with the runtime. But I'm so glad that that is the stepping stone you know and that and that and that it exists and um and i'm also really pissed that it didn't get more more than award season um yeah yes absolutely because it got completely snubbed by the golden globes and the academy right is that yeah i remember you're not right yep completely i was just i was like so we're just not going to acknowledge that this magic is oh it's fine I'm not bitter I'm fine

I've gotten over it kind of but yeah so I love this movie I wish it could have given us more but I kind of explored more and kind of given us more depth but I'm glad it existed so I'll give it

four stars. Nice. Amazing yay well thank you so much for joining us yeah thank you this was such a blast thank you so much for having me i love your art i really appreciate uh your work and it was really fun to talk to you likewise thanks for bringing us this movie this was so fun yeah uh where can we find more of your work where can we follow you plug away yeah so i am uh you can follow me on twitter and instagram on on on twitter i'm femmes and films f-e-m-m-e-s-n uh films and then on twitter i'm michael michelle so michael michelle and then with three e's at the end um and then I work in Teen Vogue and Vogue and Elle and Harper's Bazaar and Nylon.

And you can just, I'm Michael Michelle at all of those sites. And I'm just freelancing around the internet, you know, and in school trying to get a film degree. Yep. All very relatable stuff. Yeah. So we're just here trying to make art film degree yep very relatable stuff we're just here trying to make art review art I'm just here on the internet hell yeah

and you can find us in all the usual places you can find us on Instagram and Twitter at Bechdelcast you can find us on our Patreon aka Matreon at patreon.com slash Bechelcast, where you get two bonus episodes a month

for simply $5 a month. Wow. In addition to our almost 100-episode back catalog. Wow. Yeah. Incredible. Brave of us. Yeah.

Brave of us. And you can also grab some merch at our merch store, tpublic.com slash the Bechtel cast. There's all kinds of goodies. So go grab them. I haven't heard the word goodies used in casual conversation in many moons. Thank you for that. Anytime.

And Jamie, we've successfully pulled off this podcast that we've all done together. So now can we kill Liam Neeson? So we can kill Liam Neeson. And now we have five million dollars. Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unnerves the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks.

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