AFI FEST film review: 'I'm Your Woman'
Stories following characters forced to live on the run almost always focus entirely on the running, but the '70s crime drama 'I'm Your Woman' (the Opening Night World Premiere feature at AFI FEST on Oct. 15) makes the unconventional choice to focus on the quiet, mundane moments of life on the run.
In short: Set in the 1970s, suburban housewife Jean ('The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' star Rachel Brosnahan) and her baby are forced to go on the run after her criminal husband Eddie (Bill Heck) betrays his partners.
From the very outset, 'I'm Your Woman' is a crime drama that fires out of the gate with a surprising and unlikely source of tension: Jean cannot have children. She is a criminal's housewife, vaguely aware of how her care-free life is funded, but blissfully ignorant of the specifics of his 'job.' Eddie is such the provider that he gives Jean a comfortable home in the suburbs, insists she not drive a car and even gives Jean the baby she desperately wanted. Literally. Eddie simply shows up one day with a baby, just telling a shocked Jean that the unnamed infant boy is her baby now.
Plenty of gritty actioners have some hero running around doing hero stuff, while their loved ones are spirited off to safety - only to pop back into the story after spending some time in a safe house off camera. 'I'm Your Woman' fills in those unseen gaps, living in Jean's isolation and frustration with her life on the run. Most of the mayhem occurs in the background, freeing 'Your Woman' up to concentrate on Jean's struggle as a new mother and Jean as a woman always looking over her shoulder.
Brosnahan's dialogue-light performance radiates a woman truly out of her element in virtually every way, yet a character who surprises even herself with survival instincts and skills. From the moment she's told to escape in the middle of the night, Jean is constantly off balance: she's suddenly a new mom without a clue how to care for an infant, she doesn't know why she's in danger and she's pulled deeper into a criminal world, unsure who to trust. The core of 'I'm Your Woman' is Jean's transformation from sheltered housewife into an increasingly capable protector set against a threat closing in on her and her baby. Brosnahan exudes a reserved intelligence and resolve that makes Jean an unlikely, but totally credible survivor.
While the first two-thirds of the film are a quietly captivating character-focused journey following Jean in hiding, the final third is filled with a lot of vague violence. 'Your Woman' is doggedly focused on Jean almost to a fault: supporting characters come and go, and once they're off camera, their survival or death just happens ... often without explanation. This effectively puts the audience in Jean's shoes, but at the cost of just having plot turns that abruptly just ... happen. 'Your Woman' trades character exploration for a script that dangerously flirts with 'and then' plot turns late in the film. The lack of specificity works in the first half because 'Your Woman' is more rooted in how the increasingly dangerous situation affects Jean - but the final third feels like a rushed attempt to wrap up all the gritty elements that exist mostly offscreen. Thankfully the movie remains firmly locked on Jean's evolution, making even the lazier late-stage plot points forgivable because at least each scene is rooted in what lengths Jean is willing to go to in order to protect those around her.
Final verdict: This refreshing crime drama confidently embraces its quiet moments, as it opts to focus on those dealing with the fallout of seemingly random violent crime rather than glorifying happy violence.
Score: 3.5/5
'I'm Your Woman' screens at AFI FEST and streams on Amazon Prime starting Dec. 11. This crime drama is rated R for violence and language and has a runtime of 120 minutes.
(Image courtesy of AFI FEST)
