In Chicago four women end up working together to try to rebuild their lives after being left in debt because of their dead husbands criminal activities, they have nothing in common and pretty much cannot stand each other. But needs must to survive.
The film opens showing scenes with the husbands and wives together to try to show that everything was all just normal and happy in the relationships, but far from it and it's not long until we see the tragic event in which they were killed on a job. Then the women had to deal with the fall out from this. Mainly Veronica as her husband Harry Rawlings was a well-known criminal and he had stolen some money from Jamal Manning who was running for election against Jack Mulligan, attempting to derail the Mulligan family from office and become the first black man in this area.
It doesn't take long before Jamal threatens Veronica to get the $2 million back that was stolen, but she doesn't actually know very much about what Harry did. Obviously people are not going to believe that. She is left a key though and an address this leads her to getting a notebook. Now that book is going to be key for her to try to get out of the mess she has been left in. I thought that was very old school but effective in terms of the story.
The plot has many twists and turns and I was actually impressed that I managed to work out the main plot twist and in all honesty it was pretty shocking and done in the best possible way. I am not going to spoil it but would be interested to know if others worked it out as well. You cannot help but get behind Veronica and as she manages to find the other wives coming up with plans to finish the work Harry had started.
Performance wise as usual Viola Davis was outstanding and I thought that she leads this film in a very impressive manner. Elizabeth Debicki was also impressive as I felt she had the toughest role in terms of how her character had been treated by everyone around her, seriously how many times did she get slapped/hit? Colin Farrell taking on the politician role was also good to watch, not the greatest of characters in terms of his morals. Daniel Kaluuya was brutal in his role and you certainly did not mess with Jatemme Manning!
I am not really sure what exactly I expected from this film but I really did find it impressive. The story and the thought-provoking nature of the events which lead to the women standing up for themselves and showing that they really can do what the men failed to reach. It puts a little bit on the race issues when running in elections but also for the area. The supposed good-natured empowerment of women to own their own business wasn't necessarily as it first seemed. I fear this film will be under watched as it really is the best one I've seen in the past few months!
