Oscar predictor, as it is often described, Toronto International Film Festival had been home to Steve McQueen’s last outing, 12 Years A Slave , in 2013, a film that bagged the Grolsch People’s Choice award at the festival and then went on to win three Academy awards.
With Widows, Mr. McQueen makes a major shift — to a heist film — with aplomb. Four women are left with huge debts when their criminal husbands are killed in an encounter. There is no way out for gathering the moolah other than a robbery of a lifetime. There are guns, battles, blasts and blown cars. There is a major twist, many turns of the plot and the mandatory edge of the seat moments.
And there is more. Much like what Jacque Audiard does with the all American Western in The Sisters Brothers , Mr. McQueen puts his own unique stamp on the heist drama genre.
It’s not just about the thrills, but also looks at power play — in the world of American politics and the man-woman relationship.
There is a panoramic gaze at issues — inheritance of power, nepotism, conservatism, race relations, gender, immigration, gun culture that Mr. McQueen balances out beautifully with the basic tenet of the genre — to keep it entertaining.
Director Steve McQueen at the premiere of Widows at the Toronto International Film Festival; and right, actors Dev Patel and Radhika Apte at the premiere of The Wedding Guest .
At the centre of Widows universe is Veronica (Viola Davis), who takes charge and plans out the operative when her husband Rawlins (Liam Neeson) passes away, with his other crime buddies, in a job gone wrong.
Ms. Davis brings immense dignity, composure and a subtle intensity to her role. On a larger plane, Widows is about coming to terms with loss and grief and moving on with the business of life. It’s about how betrayals hurt more than a loss and you can read it all on Ms. Davis’ fluid, luminous face. But most of all it’s about girl power, a wildly entertaining, feminist heist film driven by women.
India story
Michael Winterbottom’s The Wedding Guest , the second of Dev Patel films at TIFF this year, other than Hotel Mumbai , is a road movie much like Mr. Winterbottom’s own 2002 illegal immigration drama — In This World .
However, the journey gets reversed here; instead of the move of two Afghan refugees, from Pakistan to Britain, The Wedding Guest is about a mysterious young man of subcontinental descent (Patel) who arrives into Pakistan from Leicester to kidnap a young woman (Radhika Apte) getting married against her wishes.
There is an ambiguity at the heart of the characters and the film itself, but it, somehow, never leaps out of the screen to reach out to the viewers. The prolific filmmaker seems at not quite at ease here and there is glaring lack of drive and drama in the narrative.
Ms. Apte, working for the first time with him, spoke about being taken in with his immense clarity and preciseness and small, compact, no-frills crew with which he works. Mr. Winterbottom, who first shot in India for Code 46, has returned since then with A Mighty Heart and Trishna . Much of the Pakistan in The Wedding Guest had to be recreated in India. Mr. Winterbottom hopes to return yet again to India as, according to him, one film and story often lead to many more. Hope the next is a more compelling one.
