History Film / Widows

* StatuesqueStunner: Alice, played by the 6'2 Elizabeth Debicki, is a tall, beautiful woman frequently seen wearing tight cocktail dresses. She towers over every person she shares the screen with, occasionally causing problems with keeping her in the same frame with the much shorter widows.

The movie stars [[AllStarCast *deep breath*]] Creator/ViolaDavis, Creator/MichelleRodriguez, Creator/CynthiaErivo, Creator/ElizabethDebicki, Creator/ColinFarrell, Bryan Tyree Henry, Creator/DanielKaluuya, Jacki Weaver, Creator/CarrieCoon, Robert Duvall, and Creator/LiamNeeson. The movie premiered at the 2018 Toronto Internationa Film Festival ahead of a November 16 release.

* LadyMacbeth: Played with in an amusing way. Jack Mulligan's aide is functionally silent and nodding along at all his campaign events. But in a car ride done as TheOner focused on the outside of the car so we can't see them, she proceeds to verbally abuse him for his incompetence and allowing the race to be so close. As soon as they exit the car, she returns to full "nodding aide" mode.

* LadyMacbeth: Played with in an amusing way. Jack Mulligan's aide is functionally silent and nodding along at all his campaign events. But in a sequence done as TheOner all from the hood of their car and with them hidden in the back seat, she proceeds to verbally abuse him for his incompetence and allowing the race to be so close. As soon as they exit the car, she returns to full "nodding aide" mode.

* RealityEnsues: A lot of mistakes are made in the preparation for the heist and during it, as one would expect from a group of women who barely know each other and have almost zero criminal expierence.

** Jack Mulligan displays an image on the campaign trail as a progressive politician who recognizes the value of Americans of all races. In private, he is racist and homophobic, frequently putting down his opponent Jamal in attempt to pump himself up. During one public event, he poses with black women he boasts he made into independent business owners, but ignores a reporter's request to speak about the claims that he's been embezzling from those same women. Then, upon getting in his car, Jack starts ranting about "encroaching" black communities right behind the chauffeur of his car, who is also black.

** [[spoiler: Harry fatally double-crosses his three partners, but at least two of them are posthumously revealed to have been less than upstanding; Alice's husband Florek beat her, and Carlos, Linda's husband, secretly pledged the store they were leasing as collateral to pay off his massive gambling debts.]]

** Jack Mulligan displays an image on the campaign trail as a progressive politician who recognizes the value of Americans of all races. In private he is racist and homophobic, frequently putting down his opponent Jamal in attempt to pump himself up. During one public event he poses with black women he boasts he made into independent business owners, but ignores a reporter's request to speak about the claims that he's been embezzling from those same women. Then upon getting in his car Jack starts ranting about "encroaching" black communities right behind the chauffeur of his car, who is also black.

** Veronica's dog, when brought to Harry's abandoned hideout, smells his scent on his jacket. [[spoiler:Her dog grows excited again at a closet door at Amanda's house, because Harry, having faked his death, is hiding inside. Also there is Harry's flask, seen briefly at the start and also spotted at Amanda's.]]

* ContrivedCoincidence: Alice's first and seemingly only client when she becomes a sex worker just so happens to be [[spoiler:a real estate developer with the right connections to identify the building the widows need to rob, just from a blueprint.]]
* CorruptPolitician: Jack Mulligan and his opponent for ward alderman, Jamal Manning, are both extremely crooked. Mulligan is heir to a political dynasty that runs on patronage (his incumbent father is, if anything, more corrupt than he is) [[spoiler: and cuts deals with robbers to steal from Manning's campaign funds]]. Manning, for his part, is an out-and-out gangster who barely tries to maintain a veneer of respectability and is fully willing to resort to violence to get his way.

* DespairEventHorizon: [[spoiler:His son Marcus' shooting death at the hands of a racist cop, which Harry heard as he was talking to his son on the phone, not only destroyed Harry and Veronica's marriage, but made him decide to fake his death and leave everything - including Veronica - behind, running off with a friend of Veronica whose husband also died in the heist and whose son he fathered.]]

* FingerInTheMail: A variant. As the deadline to deliver the money approaches, Jatemme mails Veronica a letter containing [[spoiler:Bash's ring, acquired after Bash was beaten to death by Jatemme's henchmen.]]

* ForTheEvulz: Jatemme Manning, Jamal's brother and [[TheDragon enforcer]], frequently tortures his victims in cruelly casual ways. When punishing two guards who slacked off during Harry's break-in, he makes them continue the rap they were goofing off with before shooting one and letting the other attempt to flee in a panic before shooting him too. When confronting [[spoiler:Bobby, he tosses him out of his wheelchair and stabs him all over the body, even testing to see if Bobby reacts to wounds in his paralyzed legs, and then putting his wheelchair a significant crawling distance away. Then when killing Bash, Jatemme turns up the TV real loud, to obscure Bash's screams as he's beaten to death, and watches football calmly]]. While Jamal states he wants to go into politics because he sees a longer life coming through there than through a gang, Jatemme has no desire to transition to a place when there isn't killing.
* ItsAllAboutMe: [[spoiler:For all his grief over the death of his son and his genuine surprise that Veronica didn't just sell the notebook he provided for her, when it comes right down to it, Harry cares only about himself. He coldly murders his entire crew, fakes his own death, places Veronica and the other widows in serious risk and plans to run away with his new secret family. He ultimately comes across as rather pathetic, screaming that he had to save himself and making it clear who his number one priority is.]]
* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: What's to be expected [[RealityEnsues when several housewives have to turn to using guns for the first time]]. Linda and Alice start out pretty badly during their first practice at the gun range, Linda in particular finding to her dismay that every one of her bullets missed the target. [[spoiler:Ironically she ends up shooting Tom Mulligan when the heist escalates into a gunfight.]]

** The widows themselves have fairly selfish motivations, and at least a few of them were aware of their husbands' criminal activities, Veronica especially (which is why Jamal is so keen to stick her with the bill for Harry's robbery of him). That's not even getting into how much they bicker with each other. Still, they're nowhere near as greedy or thuggish as the men they're all up against, and during the heist they avoid killing anyone who isn't armed. [[spoiler: By the end, they've developed a close camaraderie, and use their proceeds to the community's benefit.]]
* MockMillionaire: While not quite that rich, Linda learns the hard way she falls into this category. She assumed she was doing well with her shop and always giving the monthly lease payments to her husband to pay off as well as the takes from his robberies. It turns out he just spent all that money at the racetrack and made a slew of bad gambles. Linda had no idea until she comes to her shop to find a bunch of gangsters tearing it up, telling them that her husband sold them the deed to pay off his debts but still died owing them a lot so they're just cleaning her out. This instant bankruptcy pushes Linda to join Veronica's plan.

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Jatemme [[spoiler:hijacking the womens' heist and escaping with their van gives them a decoy to have the robbery blamed on: himself, when the women rear-end him into a crash and leave him for dead.]]
* OnceMoreWithClarity: The movie opens with the theft gone wrong that led to Harry and his crew being killed. Later, we see it again only [[spoiler: we now see how Harry set the whole thing up, using another corpse in the driver's seat and ensuring his crew would be taken out by the cops and an explosion while he walked off.]]
* TheOner: an extended shot of Jack walking to his car and being driven through his district as he speaks with an aide about the state of the area, contrasting his words with the environment.
* OnlyAFleshWound: Downplayed. [[spoiler:Alice is shot in the shoulder by Tom Mulligan during the heist, and immediately shoots him back, but quickly grows too weak to walk under her own power. She is taken to an ambulance by Linda, and after an indeterminate amount of time is seen alive at the end with seemingly no lasting damage.]]

* WhamLine: A terrific variation: [[spoiler:While at Amanda's house, Veronica hears her dog barking like crazy...exactly the way he would bark at Harry. She then sees Harry's flask on the table and that, combined with the barking, makes her realize Harry is alive and hiding behind the door.]]

* WhenSheSmiles: [[spoiler: Veronica displays a positively dazzling smile as the film's last shot to underscore how much she's changed since it began.]]

* StatuesqueStunner: Alice, played by Elizabeth Debicki, is very tall, with legs for days, and beautiful in a willowy fashion. Occasionally, even the camera has trouble dealing with her height around the not-overly-tall other characters.

** Linda visits a building design firm. While there, she pretends to be a naive new employee and switches to Spanish when acting frustrated, gaining the sympathy of the Latina secretary she's speaking with. Then when meeting the husband of the designer she's looking for, she lapses into tears when said husband is indignant with her for bringing up his deceased wife (the designer). They seemingly connect in their grief, impulsively make out, and then Linda leaves with him none the wiser.
** Alice, who typically has an American accent, fakes a Polish one and pretends to be an escaped mail-order bride when visiting a gun auction. Her sob story of being alone in America trying to escape her pursuer gains her the trust of the gun enthusiast mother and daughter she lies to, them buying her excuse for wanting multiple Glocks.
** Averted with Veronica, who instead focuses on projecting an image of stern self-control, despite her inner turmoil from the death of her husband.

* ContrivedCoincidence: Alice's first and seemingly only client when she becomes a sex worker just so happens to be [[spoiler:a real estate developer with the right connections to identify the building the Widows need to rob, just from a blueprint.]]

* ForTheEvulz: Jatemme Manning, Jamal's brother and [[TheDragon enforcer]], frequently tortures his victims in cruelly casual ways. When punishing two guards who slacked off during Harry's break-in, he makes them continue the rap they were goofing off with and then shoot one and lets the other attempt to flee in a panic before shooting him too. When confronting [[spoiler:Bobby, he tosses him out of his wheelchair and stabs him all over the body, even testing to see if Bobby reacts to wounds in his paralyzed legs, and then putting his wheelchair a significant crawling distance away. Then when killing Bash, Jatemme turns up the TV real loud, to obscure Bash's screams as he's beaten to death, and watches football calmly]]. While Jamal states he wants to go into politics because he sees a longer life coming through there than through a gang, Jatemme has no desire to transition to a place when there isn't killing.

** Jack Mulligan displays an image on the campaign trail as a progressive politician who recognizes the value of Americans of all races. In private he is racist and homophobic, frequently putting down his opponent Jamal in attempt to pump himself up. During one public event he poses with black women he boasts he made into independent business owners, but ignores a reporter's request to speak about the claims that he's been embezzling from those same women. Then upon getting his car Jack starts ranting about "encroaching" black communities right behind the chauffeur of his car, who is also black.

Meanwhile, Jamal Manning is attempting to get elected alderman of his district, facing off against the son of an influential local power broker who just happens to be the intended target of the widows' heist.

The movie stars [[AllStarCast *deep breath*]] Creator/ViolaDavis, Creator/MichelleRodriguez, Cynthia Erivo, Creator/ElizabethDebicki, Creator/ColinFarrell, Bryan Tyree Henry, Creator/DanielKaluuya, Jacki Weaver, Creator/CarrieCoon, Robert Duvall, and Creator/LiamNeeson. The movie premiered at the 2018 Toronto Internationa Film Festival ahead of a November 16 release.

** Agnieska, Alice's mother. In addition to being physically abusive well into Alice's adult life, she lures her own daughter into sex work while also slut-shaming her. She's a walking horror show.

* ContrivedCoincidence: Alice's first and seemingly only client when she becomes a sex worker just so happens to be a real estate developer [[spoiler:with the right connections to identify the building the Widows need to rob, just from a blueprint.]]

* LadyMacbeth: Played with in an amusing way. Jack Mulligan's wife is functionally silent and nodding along at all his campaign events. But in a sequence done as TheOner all from the hood of their car and with them hidden in the back seat, she proceeds to verbally abuse him for his incompetence and allowing the race to be so close. As soon as they exit the car, she returns to full "nodding wife" mode.

* NeverSuicide: After Veronica [[spoiler:kills Harry in self-defense, she plants her gun in his hand, making it look like he shot himself and that he owned the weapon used to kill Tom Mulligan.]]

* TheCaper: The centrepiece of the film is a heist to get money to repay the cash that Harry stole.

* MockMillionaire: While not quite that rich, Linda learns the hard way she falls into this category. She assumed she was doing well with her shop and always giving the monthly lease payments to her husband to pay off as well as the takes from his robberies. It turns out he just spent all that money at the racetrack and made a slew of bad gambles. Linda had no idea until she comes to her shop to find a bunch of gangsters tearing it up, telling them that her husband sold them the deed to pay off his debts but still died owing them a lot so are just cleaning her out. This instant bankruptcy pushes Linda to join Veronica's plan.

** The widows themselves have fairly selfish motivations, and at least a few of them were aware of their husbands' criminal activities, Veronica especially (which is why Jamal is so keen to stick her with the bill for Harry's robbery of him). That's not even getting into how much they bicker with each other. Still, they're nowhere near as greedy or thuggish as the men they're all up against. [[spoiler: By the end, they've developed a close camaraderie, and use their proceeds to the community's benefit.]]

* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: What's to be expected [[RealityEnsues when several housewives have to turn to using guns for the first time]]. Linda and Alice start out pretty badly during their first practice at the gun range, Linda in particular finding to her dismay that every one of her bullets missed the target.[[spoiler:Ironically she ends up shooting Tom Mulligan when the heist escalates into a gunfight.]]