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| Rachel Brosnahan and Arinzé Kene in "I'm Your Woman" Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com |
The opening of director Julia Hart’s slow-burn crime-drama, “I’m Your Woman,” presents the lead character, Jean (Rachel Brosnahan), as she relaxes in her backyard, letting the day sail by. She doesn’t seem to have much going on, hinting at a life that seems normal on the surface, but possibly missing something. This is a modest introduction to someone who will experience a complete change in character when her life takes a dangerous turn.
The story takes place in the 1970s and follows Jean, who lives an uneventful life with her husband, Eddie (Bill Heck). One night, she’s visited by his associate, Cal (Arinzé Kene), who tells her that she has to go into hiding because of her husband betraying his business partner. Jean soon finds herself in a life-threatening scenario that will have her questioning who her husband really is.
Brosnahan is a captivating presence throughout, proving that she has a promising future in movies whenever she finishes her acclaimed work on TV’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” The sense of panic and confusion that she elicits as she’s thrown into the uncertainty of her situation grips you as she tries to hold everything together in the midst of this unexpected shift in her life. However, as time goes on and she must learn to tap into her inner strength, Brosnahan sets a fire ablaze in Jean’s eyes as she becomes aware of what’s at stake and will do whatever she can in order to come out of her situation alive. This is a fleshed-out evolution of her character that takes its time in developing who Jean is and who she becomes, with Brosnahan embracing this complex character and showing both the before and after in great detail.
Marcia Stephanie Blake, who the plays Cal’s wife, Teri, is intriguing as an individual who helps to familiarize Jean with the criminal underworld in which their husbands work. As this unfolds in the second half of the movie, we see a friendship form as Teri and Jean begin working together more and more as the danger keeps closing in. Blake presents someone who has been through what Jean is experiencing, someone who came to terms with this lifestyle and had make the best of it, but now must fight for her life, just like Jean.
Kene delivers a calm, yet forceful performance as an individual who’s tasked with guiding Jean through the deadly cat-and-mouse chases when people begin hunting them down. He brings us a character who must make tough decisions, but at the same time, seems used to doing so, showing us how much his mind races as he formulates plans to keep Jean safe. It’s a startling blend of someone who can be quick and violent in what he must do for his job, but also understanding and quietly compassionate in what Jean is feeling with her life being uprooted.
The screenplay by Hart and her husband, Jordan Horowitz, who have been co-writers for Hart’s other films, takes an approach to the story where it’s all told from Jean’s point of view. This allows the movie to abandon crime-drama tropes and instead make it a character study about Jean coming into her own as a person who must learn to do what she can to protect her loved ones. By telling the story from her perspective, we feel the sense of unease that she experiences in being kept in the dark about many aspects of what’s occurring off-screen. Despite there being some details that are kept from Jean, we’re still given the chance to have other aspects of the story disclosed, as we come along with Jean and have our eyes opened little by little, but never quite all of the way (which isn’t a bad thing), to what’s really going on.
Hart always makes you feel the urgency that Jean experiences. With many scenes taking place at night, Hart solidifies the uneasy, mysterious feeling of not knowing what’s lurking in the dark, with there always being the possibility of unknown assailants waiting for you to make a wrong move. In many cases, she uses Bryce Fortner’s cinematography to encourage you to scan the frame for any potential enemies within the image, whether it be when Jean tries to escape a home invasion, or something as simple as her meeting someone in a diner. Hart always emphasizes that a threat can come from anywhere, making your pulse work overtime as you follow Jean from one location to the next as she begins to further understand the world in which she’s now a part.
If you’re searching for a crime narrative that subverts your expectations from what you’ve seen before in this genre, Jean is your woman.
Grade: A
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