Widows

Based on the popular U.K. television series of the same name, created by Lynda La Plante, Widows is directed, co-written and produced by Academy Award®winning filmmaker Steve McQueen, whose 12 Years a Slave won the 2013 Academy Award® for Best Picture.

When McQueen approached renowned screenwriter Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl) to co-write the script, she says she jumped at the opportunity.

According to Flynn, the story offers a twist on the typical heist film in that each character that intersects comes from different ethnic, financial and social background. “My favourite part about heist films are when the team comes together. I love that,” she notes.

Producer Iain Canning was approached by McQueen early on about the project.

The filmmakers assembled an impressive cast of actors for the film. McQueen says it was very important to make his cast feel comfortable and at-home, so to speak.

Academy Award-winning actress Viola Davis was cast as Veronica Rawlins, the lead widow of the film who must pick up the pieces of her life after her husband, Harry (played by Neeson), dies in a failed heist.

Davis says it’s a role that she never imagined she’d be asked to portray. Once getting over the pleasant surprise of being approached for the role, Davis says she found herself drawn to her character as well as to the story.

In the film, Veronica is married to career criminal Harry Rawlins, played by Liam Neeson. When you first meet them, the couple have already been damaged by a tragic death.

She decides to live by finishing the heist Harry was supposed to commit. Step one: employ her crew, the widows of Harry’s cohorts in crime.

Davis notes that her chemistry with Neeson was natural, especially in the ‘bed’ scenes.

Michelle Rodriguez plays Linda, a widow struggling to keep her family and dress shop afloat after her husband’s death. Rodriguez admits she was afraid to take on the role at first.

Ultimately, it was her decision to face her fears of the unknown that made up her mind.

Rodriguez describes her character as being naïve and trusting when we first meet her.

Elizabeth Debicki, cast as Alice – the Polish immigrant and controlled wife – says she wanted to be part of the film in order to work with McQueen.

Debicki describes her character, married to Florek (played by Jon Bernthal), as the least savvy, most sheltered of the widows.

Debicki observes that the process of joining up with the other widows and taking part in the heist develops her sense of self-worth and self-esteem.

Cynthia Erivo, in her first major film role, portrays Belle, an ally who steps in to help the widows in their quest.

Erivo loves that her character is strong and complex.

A politician who figures into the widows’ master plan is Jack Mulligan, played by Colin Farrell. Farrell admits he feels a bit sorry for his character, whose life was already mapped out for him based on his family lineage. The son of Tom Mulligan, played by Robert Duvall, Jack is meant to follow in his father’s footsteps by becoming the next alderman for the 18th Ward of Chicago.

Not only is Jack dealing with his own personal demons but he is running against an enigmatic opponent.

The feelings were mutual, according to Duvall, who found Farrell to be an exceptional actor.

Duvall says not only did he relish the opportunity to work with McQueen, he was attracted to his character and the complicated love-hate, father-son relationship.

Brian Tyree Henry, best known for his work in the acclaimed TV series Atlanta, plays Jamal Manning, Jack’s political opponent in the 18th Ward and a man to whom, Veronica discovers, Harry owes money. Henry says he knew he had to be a part of this ‘special project’.

Kaluuya, best known for his role in the acclaimed thriller Get Out, is also Jamal’s protector. “It’s easy to think of Jatemme as the muscle, as you know, the bully or the henchman that does what Jamal wants, but I think that Jatemme really wants the best for his brother and wants to be right there,” Henry explains. “Whereas Jamal loves him dearly, but I don’t want to say he’s using him as a pawn, but at the end of the day Jamal is going to do what he’s got to do to get where he’s going to get. But there is a true depth to their relationship there, ‘cause it’s just been us. You know what I mean?”

Kaluuya sees his character as Jamal’s street alter ego.

The midterm elections have further loosened marijuana restrictions in the United States. Voters in three of four states with ballot proposals on marijuana approved those initiatives.

In Utah and Missouri, voters on Tuesday decided that patients should have access to medical marijuana.

Michigan, which already had medical marijuana, became the first Midwestern state to fully legalize pot. It joins nine other U.S. states, Washington, D.C., Canada and Uruguay in launching a regulated recreational marijuana market.

North Dakotans decisively rejected a proposal to make marijuana legal for recreational purposes.

Before Tuesday’s vote, 22 American states had adopted comprehensive medical marijuana programs. California was the first, recognizing in 1996 the therapeutic uses of marijuana in easing the symptoms of serious illnesses like HIV, cancer, epilepsy, PTSD and glaucoma. Recently, marijuana’s potential value for treating chronic pain has garnered attention as an alternative to opioids.

No tipping point

Nationally, support for marijuana has never been stronger. Seventytwo percent of Democrats and a narrow majority of Republicans – 51 percent – support legalization, according to Gallup.

Strong public support and successive waves of state-level legalization in election years have led many policy analysts to argue that marijuana has reached a tipping point in the United States.

Two-thirds of all U.S. states have now legalized some kind of marijuana. After that, the argument goes, its nationwide expansion is inevitable.

As marijuana policy researchers, we question that narrative.

Our research indicates that medical marijuana progress may well stall after this latest round of successful ballot initiatives. Recreational marijuana may continue to expand into states with legal medical marijuana but will ultimately hit a wall, too.

Our caution has to do with the particular way marijuana legalization has occurred in the United States: at the ballot box.

Ballot initiatives have power

So far, all but one of the recreational marijuana laws passed has occurred via ballot initiative, not through the state legislative process. Seven of the first eight medical marijuana laws – those in California, Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Maine and Nevada – were also adopted via ballot initiative.

Such direct initiatives – where citizens can put a policy on the ballot for approval – are a powerful, if nontraditional, form of policymaking in the United States.

Rather than relying on lawmakers to write and pass legislation on certain issues – often, controversial ones – ballot initiatives harness public opinion. They have been used to legalize or restrict same-sex marriage, place limitations on taxing and spending, raise the minimum wage and much more. Some are funded by wealthy individuals with specific business interests.

Even in states where ballot initiatives have little hope of passing, they can be an important force for policy change.

In Ohio, marijuana advocates in 2015 spent over US$20 million in an effort to legalize both medical and recreational marijuana in the same ballot initiative. Ohio voters overwhelmingly said no – but the campaign revealed broad support for a medical marijuana policy.

The Marijuana Policy Project, an advocacy organization, said it would put medical marijuana on Ohio’s ballot in 2016. In response, Ohio’s legislature moved quickly to craft and pass its own medical marijuana legislation.

In Utah, where Gov. Gary Herbert opposed the expansive medical marijuana proposal passed on Tuesday, lawmakers have already promised to supercede the initiative and pass marijuana legislation that would be more acceptable to conservative state legislators and the influential Mormon Church.

The limits of direct initiative

So the ballot initiative is powerful. But our analysis suggests its potential for liberalizing marijuana access in the U.S. is nearly tapped out.

Of the 17 U.S. states that still have no form of legal marijuana, only five – Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska and Missouri – allow direct initiatives.

The rest are mostly conservative places like South Carolina and Alabama, where legislatures have indicatedreluctance to loosen restrictions. If voters there wanted medical or recreational marijuana, they would not have the option of bypassing policymakers to get the issue on the ballot.

Marijuana legalization won’t end with the 2018 midterms. There is still room for recreational marijuana to expand into the 22 – soon to be 24 – states that have legal medicinal marijuana.

History shows that once people grow comfortable with medical marijuana – seeing its impacts on patients and tax revenues – full legalization often follows.

In our analysis, the remaining 13 states are very unlikely to liberalize access to marijuana without a significant push by the federal government.

That’s unlikely, but not impossible, under the Trump administration.

Federal law still considers marijuana an illegal Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning that as far as the U.S. government is concerned, the plant has no medical value.

The Obama administration took a hands-off approach to states’ legalization, allowing them to experiment. But Attorney General Jeff Sessions has directed Justice Department attorneys to fully enforce federal law in legal marijuana states.

Quietly, however, the Trump administration has also sought public comments on reclassifying marijuana. And the president himself has at times signaled support for leaving marijuana up to the states.

If Sessions leaves the Trump administration, as rumor has long suggested, the DOJ’s position on marijuana enforcement could change.

And Democrats, who won control of the House on Tuesday, have previously indicated that they could push to remove marijuana as a Schedule I drug as soon as next year.

This article is an updated version of a story originally published on Oct. 31, 2018.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: http://theconversation.com/marijuana-expands-into3-more-states-but-nationwide-legali zation-still-unlikely-106512.