I'm Your Woman

Point Blank. The Friends Of Eddie Coyle. Cisco Pike. The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three. Mikey And Nicky. Charley Varrick. Those classic crime films of the late 60's/early 70's about bad men getting up to no good. About their failed schemes and inevitable downfalls. But what about the women in their lives? Their families? The people left behind to suffer the fallout? Well that's where I'm Your Woman comes in. Director Julia Hart presents us with her take on a usually masculine genre lensed through the sexual and racial politics of the era. And she does it very well.

Jean (Rachel Brosnahan) is dragged out of bed in the middle of the night and forced to go on the run. She's a reluctant mother to a child her gangster husband Eddie (Bill Heck) has saddled her with and now she's forced to leave her glamorous life behind to go on the lam because something bad has kicked off with his partners in crime. Leading her into the night is Cal (Arinzé Kene), a man who used to work with Eddie. She's left in a house with supplies and a telephone, which is only to be used in dire emergency. Jean's never been alone in her life and before long there's a knock on the door...

At 2 hours in length I'm Your Woman is going to be far too slow burn for more impatient viewers but stick with it and you'll be rewarded with a rich, surprisingly warm look at the other side of the crime classics mentioned in the first paragraph. Jean's been dropped in at the deep end and so are we. We don't know exactly what caused all the trouble and we don't need to, making every door knock, every appearance of a car suspenseful as hell. We never see what caused all the hassle, and throughout it's only vaguely alluded to and it's a great storytelling decision because I'm Your Woman is Jean's story, no-one else's. She's always in our eyeline making every twist as new to her as it is to us.

It's a decision that may frustrate some as the camera stays pinned to Jean at moments when all hell is kicking off elsewhere but Rachel Brosnahan is so convincing that watching the emotions twirl across her face is far more interesting than watching gun battles you've seen dozens of times before. It's a nice twist on a genre usually dominated by snarling, moody men keeping themselves in check to avoid displaying weaknesses. It's warmth is a change too, especially during a tender and touching laundrette set aftermath of a horrific nightclub visit or a layered midnight chat with Frankie Faison's friendly veteran. This is the stuff the crime genre has mostly ignored. The stuff that gives I'm Your Woman real substance.

The story's 70s crime movie roots are still present in it's shades of grey though. Jean mightn't be in the life but she happily and knowingly benefitted from it and Cal is definitely no knight riding in to save her either. He's a criminal and the film never lets us forget it, especially one ambiguous act of violence that will stay with you til the credits roll. Arinzé Kene's multi faceted turn marks him as one to watch with him being as believable as a gunman as he is with his baby whispering skills. Between them they really make I'm Your Woman work.

I'm Your Woman is streaming on Amazon Prime now. It's a good one.