Woman’s role
Crime drama from a different perspective
WHENIT’S Atits best, I’myourwoman feels like you’ve slipped through a trap door, revealing a hidden pathway in an old genre apparatus. Everything looks familiar— this is a 70s-set crime dramawith all the usual trappings of shootouts, safe houses and polyester— but you’re seeing it from a different perspective. The camera doesn’t stick with the usual characters. It has other interests.
I’myourwoman, which debuts Friday in theatres and December 11 on Amazon Primevideo, is directed by Julia Hart, who also wrote the script with her husband, the producer (and Oscar flub hero) Jordan Horowitz. Rachel Brosnahan ( Themarvelousmrs. Maisel) stars as Jean, the kind ofwomantypically relegated to bit characters in more masculine dramas.
She’s sitting in their suburbanhomewhen her husband Eddie (Bill Heck) comeshomeand presents a newbaby the way someonemight unveil a new toaster. “Who is that?” Jean says. “He’s our baby,” he answers, beaming.
Weget no more information than she does, as the film immediately drops us into the disorientation of Jean’s world as the keptwomanof amanwesoon learn is some kind of gangster. But even Jean doesn’t seem to knowmuchabout what he does.
Instead of Eddie cominghomeone night, Jean is roused by a knock at the door. The man, Cal (a very good Arinze Kene), explainsmenare after Eddie, and soon will be looking for Jean, too. They have to go. Whatever Eddie did or whoever his pursuers are remains, like Jean’sown hazy understanding, in the distant background. Instead, the film rigorously stays with her as she and the baby are plunged into a loosely connected underworld meant to shield her from whatever trouble is after her. Eventually, she’ll reach for a gun, herself.
Hart’s schematic framework is aworthy and intriguing one, yet I’myourwoman struggles to turn thesis into drama. Jean slowly transforms into amore conscious, decision-makingwomanbut her character’s psychology doesn’t fill out. Even with growing independence, Jean remains a perplexingly passive genre fragment in a narrative that never comes into focus— though it continues to compellingly bring in elements usually kept at bay in the crime film, like family and race. It’s also possible that Brosnahan, so identifiable already as the unflinching Midge Maisel, is too charismatic and clever to convince us otherwise.
Hart has spoken about howshewas pulled to make I’myourwoman by wanting to followdiane Keaton inthegodfatheror Tuesday Weld in Thief. It’s a tantalising concept, one that I’myourwoman comes close to achieving. Hart, gifted as a filmmaker rich in both texture and ideas, has already skipped around in genre, often reorienting it in the process. Her 2019 sci-fi film Fastcolor told a human-scaled superhero story about threewomenin a family with superhuman powers. It will be exciting to see what genre she tackles — and potentially remakes— next. In themeantime, I wouldn’t mind knowing where that baby came from.
■ I’m Yourwoman, anamazon Studios release, is ratedr by the Motion Picture Association of America for violence and language. Runningtime: 120 minutes.
Twoandahalf stars out of four.