By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
In “Widows,” Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen (“12 Years a Slave”) and co-writer Gillian Flynn (“Gone Girl”) have come up with a compelling crime caper that has more twists and turns than a corkscrew.
Living in a luxurious penthouse high above Lake Michigan on Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive, elegant, educated, union organizer Victoria Rawlings (Viola Davis) never paid much attention to her felonious husband Harry’s (Liam Neeson) shady business — until one of his robberies goes awry and she’s left a widow, along with the wives of his crew.
In her grief, Victoria’s accosted by ambitious politician Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry) and his psychotic/enforcer brother (Daniel Kaluuya). Jamal’s in a heated political campaign for local alderman against corrupt Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell), who hopes to ‘inherit’ the seat recently vacated by his ailing father, Tom (Robert Duvall). Apparently, Harry owes Jamal a couple million dollars.
Left with little choice but settle her husband’s debt, Victoria assembles the other despairing, penniless wives (Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki) in a posh sauna, where they begin to plot a $5 million theft, following an intricate strategy that Harry left in a meticulously detailed notebook. Later, they’re joined by an intrepid getaway ‘driver’ (Cynthia Erivo).
“Yes, our heist-planning involves Tupperware,” Victoria explains. “You got a problem with that?”
Based on a British television series, the gritty script by McQueen and Flynn tackles issues of poverty, race, gender, class, politics, religion, and police brutality — as the savvy women use other people’s clichéd expectations of them to their advantage. And the complicated back story of each of the complex characters is thoughtfully delineated.
“I wanted to get the biggest, broadest audience I could possible get,” McQueen says, “while at the same time not letting go of the things I believe in intellectually, philosophically and politically.”
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Widows” is an empowering 8, as women steal the show.
As an avid Harry Potter fan, I’m disappointed that “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” is the weakest installment in the J.K. Rowling Wizarding World franchise. The characters are confusing and the plot is unnecessarily convoluted.
The story begins in 1927, New York, as shy, gentle Newt Scamader (Eddie Redmayne), the eccentric magizoologist with exotic critters in his briefcase, is recruited when diabolical Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) escapes from captivity while being transported by the American Ministry of Magic.
Appearing in the previous film disguised as Percival Graves (Colin Farrell), Grindelwald is a fascistic shape-shifter who believes that only Pure-Bloods should have power, not Mixed-Bloods or Muggles.
Although he’s been forbidden to travel, Newt goes to London, where his ambitious brother. Theseus (Callum Turner) is now engaged to Leta Lestrange (Zoe Kravitz), who was Newt’s crush when they were students at Hogwarts. Theseus wants Newt to become an Auror, a policeman in Muggle terms.
“I don’t do sides,” Newt declares.
After refusing Theseus, he’s implored by Professor Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) to go to Paris to find mysteriously orphaned Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller), who is desperate to discover his lineage.
Complicating matters further are Newt’s estranged girlfriend Tina (Katherine Waterston), along with his amiable Muggle pal Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), who’s engaged to telepathic Queenie (Alison Sudul).
Plus there’s the circus performer Nagani (Claudia Kim), who morphs into a gigantic snake; Yusuf Kama (William Nadylam), a French-African wizard who has been tracking Credence for years; and alchemist Nicolas Flamel (Brontis Jodorowsky), who created the Sorcerer’s Stone.
The concept emanates from J.K. Rowling’s 2001 bestiary, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” supposedly a Hogwarts textbook; this is the second of five projected sequels directed by David Yates. Unfortunately, screenwriter-turned-producer Steve Kloves, who previously simplified much of Rowling’s work, was not involved in the writing; I suspect he could have abridged the jumbled storyline.
On the Granger Gauge, “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” conjures up an ominous, cumbersome 6, as chaos reigns.
The formidable Swedish Goth vigilante Lisbeth Salander from Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium” trilogy is back in “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.” This time, she’s portrayed by Claire Foy, best known as young Queen Elizabeth II in the Netflix series “The Crown” for which she won an Emmy/Golden Globe.
Her story opens with an ominous flashback as adolescent Lisbeth and her sister Camilla are summoned to the bedroom of their Russian crime lord father, Alexander Zalachenko (Mikael Persbrandt). Aware of his perverted intentions, Lisbeth flees, jumping off a high balcony into a blizzard.
After suffering a traumatic childhood, motorcycle-riding Lisbeth terrorizes Stockholm as a defender of abused women, armed with an electric Taser. The only men she trusts are her ex-lover/married journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Sverrir Gudnason) and high-tech hacker Plague (Cameron Britton).
Contacted by terrified, soon-to-be-killed programmer Frans Balder (Stephen Merchant), intrepid Lisbeth acquires his pilfered ‘Firefall’ software that controls the world’s nuclear weapons. But only Balder’s six year-old autistic savant son August (Christopher Convery) knows how to decipher the access code.
Before Lisbeth can deliver it to NSA security expert Edwin Needham (Lakeith Stanfield), the briefcase is stolen by a crime syndicate called the Spiders that’s connected to her estranged sister Camilla (Sylvia Hoeks) and Gabriella Grane (Synnove Macody Lund), deputy director of the Swedish Secret Service.
Since Stieg Larsson died in 2004, the year before the first novel was published, author David Lagercrantz transformed Lisbeth’s character into a bisexual super sleuth, and his novel has been adapted by director Fede Alvarez, Jay Basu and Steven Knight.
Claire Foy is a far more skilled actress than Rooney Mara, but Fede Alvarez (“Don’t Breathe”) is no David Fincher (“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”). And Sverrir Gudnason cannot replace Daniel Craig.
On the Granger Gauge, “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” is an unfocused, far-fetched 5, spinning a forgettable espionage-thriller.
(Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
