Widows Review: 6 Ups & 3 Downs
2. The Witty, Hilarious Social Satire
Gillian Flynn may be a little too in-love with pulpy schlock, but she does know how to write amusing satire, as she proved so brilliantly in Gone Girl and again with her script here.
Though laid on decidedly less thickly than in Fincher's film, Widows is rife with barbed, pointed and often shockingly funny social commentary regarding race, class and gender.
In the age of #MeToo there are sure to be many future think-pieces about the movie's politics, particularly that the climactic heist involves the women effectively impersonating men in order to get the job done. That's to say nothing of its angry stabs at gentrification and the difficulty involved in getting black people elected to office.
It probably would've upended the movie's tone if Flynn leaned into the humour as much as she did in Gone Girl, so her restraint in this regard is laudable, while these snarky bursts of levity nevertheless prevent the film from being too much of a maudlin downer.