There are loads of crime dramas about bad guys on the run but “I’m Your Woman,” a new thriller starring “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s” Rachel Brosnahan and now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, tells the story from a different perspective, the bad guy’s wife.
The action begins when Jean’s (Brosnahan) husband Eddie (Bill Heck) comes home with a baby. We later learn she’s unable to conceive and because of his criminal record they can’t adopt, so Eddie “finds” a baby and now they’re a family of three. That night Jean is woken up by loud bangs on the door. Eddie has disappeared and now she has to flee in the company of one of her husband’s associates, a kindhearted killer named Cal (Arinze Kene). She doesn’t know where Eddie is or why he disappeared, but there is an urgency to the situation. On the road, hop scotching from seedy motels and safe houses to remote cabins, the pair try and stay one step ahead of the baddies who hunt them in their search for the elusive Eddie.
“I’m Your Woman” is a quiet movie. The stillness only broken up by the occasional door knock or gunshot. It’s the story of a woman trapped in a situation not of her making, who must shape her own destiny. It draws on 1970s crime dramas and even borrows its title from a line in Michael Mann’s 1981 “Thief,”—I’m your woman,” Tuesday Weld tells James Caan, “and you’re my man.”—but make no mistake, this isn’t simply a film that flips the genders of the protagonists. The movies that inspired it may have starred men but this is a different story, it’s a look at what happens when the men aren’t around.
There’s more than that, however. “I’m Your Woman” is a much more human story than the paranoid thrillers that informed it are not. Here Jean isn’t fighting against a machine or the government, but against the imbalance of power in a personal situation. It changes the dynamic of the storytelling and puts the focus on the person doing the fighting, Jean, and not some monolithic organization.
Brosnahan is in almost every frame of “I’m Your Woman” and yet there isn’t a trace of Mrs. Maisel to be found. In a terrific performance she allows Jean to uncork survival skills she didn’t realize she had. But, just as this isn’t “The Friends of Eddie Coyle,” it also isn’t “Atomic Blonde.” It’s a movie that guides us through Jean’s journey step by step, without flashy action or a big body count.
As a result, “I’m Your Woman” does away with the nihilism of many thrillers to offer something rare for the genre, and that’s hope for the future.
Richard joins CP24 to have a look at the weekend’s new movies including the “Little Women,” the war epic “1917,” the courtroom drama “Just Mercy,” the animated spy flick “Spies in Disguise” and Adam Sandler’s surprising work in “Uncut Gems.”
The animated “Spies in Disguise” features the voice of one of the biggest movie stars in the world and one of the strangest premises we’ve seen all year.
Will Smith voices Lance Sterling, the world’s greatest spy. “I’m out here saving the world,” he says. “That’s what I do.”
Back at HQ after a daring mission, he’s drinking from his #1 Spy mug when he’s taken into custody for stealing a secret weapon called the M9 Assassin. He claims he’s innocent, that a villain named Robot Hand (Ben Mendelsohn) stole his identity and made off the weapon. One daring escape later Sterling sets off to prove his innocence.
Trouble is, he’s easy to find so he tracks down the one person who can help him, MIT grad Walter (Tom Holland), a junior inventor in the agency’s Gadget Lab. “I need to disappear,” he tells the youngster.
Walter obliges, sharing his biodynamic concealment potion with Sterling. The spy disappears but not in the way he hoped. Instead of becoming invisible the next best (or worst, depending on how you look at it) thing happens. He turns into a pigeon. “There are pigeons in every major city,” Walter says. “It’s the perfect disguise.”
It’s a good way of going incognito perhaps but not practical in the hunt of Robot Hand. “I’ll come with you,” Walter says, “and show you all the advantages of being a pigeon. It might even make you a better spy.” Together they set off to find Robot Hand as Marcy (Rashida Jones), the agency’s head of security, tries to find and arrest them.
Featuring Pierce-Brosnan-era-007-style action and gadgets “Spies in Disguise” is frenetic, family friendly James Bond Lite. Directors Nick Bruno and Troy Quane keep the pace brisk, pausing only to emphasize a gag but the movie works best not when it’s in action but when Sterling is adjusting to life as a pigeon. As his latent avian instincts come on strong, for instance, he finds he can’t resist eating garbage on the road. It’s goofy good fun that is more interesting than Sterling’s human form, which is all swagger.
The script, by Brad Copeland and Lloyd Taylor, also mines a considerable amount of humor from the odd couple pairing of Sterling and Walter. Sterling is a shoot first and ask questions later kind of spy while Walter favors unusual methods, like disarming the baddies with wild, glittery cat videos because, well, everyone loves a cat video. “You can do more by bringing people together than blowing them up,” he says.
“Spies in Disguise” is buoyant enough to entertain the eye but the messages for kids about the benefits of being part of a flock and celebrating our differences are expertly woven throughout.
Richard joins Canada’s number one rated mid-morning show “The Marilyn Denis Show” to talk about the movies you have to see over the Christmas holidays.
There are loads of crime dramas about bad guys on the run but “I’m Your Woman,” a new thriller starring “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s” Rachel Brosnahan and now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, tells the story from a different perspective, the bad guy’s wife.
