New Chick Flick
Always
happy to jump on a bandwagon, the reviewers now crow about the new wave of
liberated women in contemporary cinema, perhaps another, more positive spin on MeToo. The gushing over Wonder Woman somehow omitted
to mention that the movie was really just another superhero flick, dependent on
the usual stunts, pyrotechnics, and computer generated images, as much a silly
comic book as any of a dozen of its predecessors—the Batman franchise, the Iron
Man franchise, the Spider-Man franchise, etc., etc. A comic book is a comic book, a superheroine
differs not at all from a superhero, and given the wondrous technology of
contemporary cinema, anyone of any sex can spin and fly through the air, shoot
out thunderbolts, battle monstrous villains, and wear a distinctive costume:
big deal.
With
a good deal less fanfare and very little in the way of the fabled magic of the
cinema, a couple of recent films further demonstrate the penetration of women
and their roles in today’s movies. Both Widows and The Kitchen show strong, independent women taking over roles that
formerly belonged to men, specifically for most of them, the men they married. Though based on quite different sources, they
share a surprising similarity of subject, tone, and theme. Oddly, however, in both films the women,
generally represented as smart, tough, and resourceful, are also, not to put
too fine a point upon it, criminals.
They steal, they kill, they destroy: what’s not to like?
In Widows four women whose husbands, a
group of thieves embarking on a big caper, are incinerated when their scheme
goes terribly wrong, decide to finish the uncompleted job. One of them finds her husband’s detailed map
and designs for the robbery and decides to enlist the other widows in a scheme
of their own. They then follow the usual
patterns of the big caper flick—casing the home of their quarry, a corrupt,
mobbed up Chicago politician, assigning specialized tasks to each suitable
member of the quartet, meticulously checking on bodyguards, security devices, schedules,
etc., figuring out precise locations and timing, in short practicing all the
methods of the form.
The
film then shows the actual robbery, which unsurprisingly escalates from a
meticulously planned operation to a series of violent confrontations, shootings,
and even a death. In keeping with the
traditions of the form, the action naturally enlists the audience on the side
of the perpetrators, so the viewers in effect must root for the bad guys, one
of the great paradoxes of so many crime movies.
The genre, whether featuring men or women, appeals to the spirit of
criminality in all of us.
Following
a quite similar pattern, The Kitchen
also features a trio of newly independent women carrying on the activities of
their spouses, though in this case, the husbands have been incarcerated. The title refers to the area of the West side
of Manhattan known for generations as Hell’s Kitchen, a tough, largely Irish
community, but also perhaps to the kitchens that the women leave in order to
embark on their own criminal enterprise.
Bitter about their treatment from the Irish mob that controls the
streets of their neighborhood, the women seek more financial support from the
mob leaders, and when the crooks reject their requests, resolve to take matters
into their own hands.
That
decision involves canvassing the neighborhood shops, informing the owners that
they will now collect the protection money and provide the service that the mob
never did. When the local gangsters get
wind of the development, a small war breaks out, and of course, the women
eventually win it, then go on to bigger and better sources of income and
power. The two main characters, played
by Melissa McCarthy and Tiffany Haddish, undergo some major transformations, approach
the brink of an internal battle, but eventually settle for equal shares of
territory, money, and power.
The
most impressive actions of both movies, more powerfully emphasized in The Kitchen, demonstrate a shocking
propensity for violence. The armed
robbery and shootings of Widows
follow a relatively logical path from the intricate planning to the execution
of the scheme, an understandable result.
In The Kitchen, however, the
women carry out a whole series of murders, most of them in cold blood, and come
to enjoy the process as well as the profits; the movie really suggests a whole
new level of viciousness for the chick flick, no longer a vehicle for romance
and light comedy, or even for costumed superheroines performing acrobatics, but
now a perfectly functioning addition to the long, crowded genre of crime film. As they used to say, sisterhood is powerful,
now it is very powerful.
One
of the differences between the two films may result from their different
origins; Widows is based on a novel
by Gillian Flynn, while The Kitchen
began life as an apparently still running series of comic books. That movie’s open ending implies more to
come, though it doesn’t inspire in me any wish to see a sequel or read the
comic books. Both films, however,
demonstrate how far the chick flick has progressed in the empowering of women,
proving that they can commit crimes of all kinds as well as any cinematic males
and behave with viciousness worthy of any gangster, even without dressing up in
a dominatrix outfit. The scene that
perhaps best summarizes the distance the form has traveled amounts to the best
pushing-on-old-lady-down-the-stairs act since Richard Widmark’s memorable
moment in Kiss of Death. It must be seen to be appreciated.
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