Almost There: Viola Davis in "Widows"
Monday, June 8, 2020 at 9:12PM 
Last week, Nick Taylor wrote a beautiful piece about the early days of Viola Davis' screen career, specifically her tryptic of stellar supporting performances in 2002. The article highlights the actress's formidable talent for creating full characterizations with minimal screen time, how she conjures rich humanity from people on the margins of the story, imbuing every glance and spoken word with mountains of meaning. After reading that, I felt compelled to revisit some of the actress's best works and, here we are, exploring the only time Viola Davis was legitimately in contention for an Oscar nomination and missed. Coincidently, it's also my favorite performance of hers in what is probably the best film she's ever been in - Widows…
Adapted from a Lynda La Plante novel, Steve McQueen's Widows (2018) tells the story of four women in contemporary Chicago whose criminal husbands die in a heist gone wrong. The night of the tragedy opens the movie, intercut with glimpses into these women's lives before everything went to hell. This approach, where memories of the past force their way into present action is a mechanism McQueen returns to many times. Little flashes of intimacy suggest years’ worth of backstory. Widows is a movie where information is mostly transmitted through tonal juxtapositions and silent reactions with little exposition to go around.
It's a filmmaking approach that perfectly fits Davis' aforementioned capability of making complex characters out of little parts. Not that the character of Veronica Rawlings is a small part. Despite Widows being an ensemble piece, McQueen puts Davis front and center, relying on her to anchor a byzantine story of betrayals intertwined with lies. At the start, she's especially important for establishing tone with Veronica being a monument of grief. She's a pillar of strength, but she's also barely holding it together. In a spectacular mirror close-up, the director lets the actress dominate the screen, documenting how this mourner hides searing pain behind a mask of inexpression.
Such tensions between the façade of normality and the volcanic despair going on inside Veronica's heart contribute to a sense of unease that fully metastasizes when the widow is confronted by an unexpected visitor in her apartment. It seems that the criminals with which her husband worked have come to collect his debts, forcing her to act quickly or risk losing everything, her life included. Davis plays the moment perfectly, shrinking into herself when faced with an aggressor, allowing Veronica to be strong but not invulnerable. She's deadly afraid. The heist plot that follows is born out of that panic and it isn't any sort of masterplan executed with cold efficiency. Instead, it's performed with despair and resigned pragmatism by the actress and her fellow cast members.
Davis is great throughout Widows' first acts, negotiating grief and helplessness, delineating precarious dynamics with her co-conspirators, and playing the part of an unexperienced bourgeois turned to crime. She even finds space for some humor, like when playing with her adorable dog or in a lovely bit of intimidation inside a sauna. Still, it's when Veronica's world gets turned upside down once again that Viola Davis' performance reveals its true genius. [SPOILERS!] As it happens, her husband didn't die and is behind a complex scheme that ended with his colleagues' deaths and the abandonment of Veronica. She discovers this most rudely, finding traces of his presence at his mistress' house, a blow that hits her like a sledgehammer to the solar plexus.
A lot of actors would play this pivotal scene by illustrating the conflicting feelings of Veronica, their faces made kaleidoscopes of expression. Davis, however, shuts down. She swallows her emotions, her face tenses and the neck flexes. She tries to show nothing, denying the camera and the audience the privilege of seeing her vulnerability. This lack of transparency is abrasive for the viewer but speaks to the idiosyncratic nature of this woman who has learned how to compartmentalize suffering. This is especially evident later on, when one more memory stabs their way into the present, letting us see another death in Veronica's past, that of her son. The look on Davis' face when opening the door to his empty bedroom, a cancer of loss in the domestic space, defies my descriptive prowess. It's beyond heartbreaking.
Not that there's a lot of time to consider the void in the heart of a mother who lost her son, for there's a heist to execute. Spiked by the horror of the truth, but still needing money, Veronica's dedication gains an added anger and that carries over to the climax. Then, the widow comes face to face with her spouse. It happens after the heist when the adrenaline has started to run out and the body feels broken. He comes in like a specter walking into his old life, facing the woman he hurt beyond reason. A woman who finally stops swallowing everything and lets us see what is going on inside her soul. In a most shocking twist, Davis plays this scene like a woman in love. She spews words of disgust that are nonetheless tainted by the affection she once felt for the man. Even when she kills him, there's tenderness to her gestures and grief to the way she touches his body. She kills him out of necessity but she also mourns him.
During an epilogue full of reticent emotions, Davis closes the film with an unsure smile. Veronica may be bruised by unimaginable suffering, but she's moving on and the actress shines a light of hope on these final moments of Widows. It's riveting work altogether, but the Best Actress race of 2018 quickly closed itself off to the possibility of surprises. Davis got a BAFTA nomination, but, come Oscar morning, the lineup of five was solidified and no one was very shocked at the outcome. The nominees were Yalitza Aparicio in Roma, Glenn Close in The Wife, Olivia Colman in The Favourite (the winner), Lady Gaga in A Star is Born and Melissa McCarthy in Can You Ever Forgive Me.
Would you trade any of those women's nominations for a chance to honor Davis' miraculous star turn in Widows?
Reader Comments (34)
Absolutely not! She doesn't deserve to be in the line-up.
No. I prefer Mulligan, Collette, Weisz...
By the way, last Sunday I saw the finale of HTGAWM and it was atrocious.
The only real contender from Widows should have been DEBICKI
Claudio -- i'm fascinated that this is your favourite Viola performance and film (!) and as usual you are quite eloquent about explaining why. I liked the film so much the first time through but the second time wasn't as crazy for it and the seams definitely showed (it's *very* plotty compared to McQueen's other works and I think that trips him up just a smidgeon... but maybe this will be a transitional film for him and he'll soon be as great with plot as he is with mood and potent scene work.
. Davis is marvelous (as usual) but for me 2018 is a truly shocking year in terms of how many female lead performances were nomination worthy.
Beautifully written.
Yalitza Aparicio was a coattail nomination for "Roma". Davis, Nicole Kidman and especially Toni Colette deserved it more but their respective films didn't get anything. I wouldn't mind Viola Davis as a nominee even if I felt she's done it all and better throughout "How to Get Away with Murder".
I’d switch out Gaga for Davis. This might be my favourite performance from her. Super underrated.
Davis should've been nominated as that was an incredible performance. The scene where she discovered her husband's flask was just incredible as Davis just killed it.
I’m a pretty big fan of the nominee line up as it was. Though I think Weiss was phenomenal that year too. Davis’s performance in “Widows” was solid because she’s so deeply talented and it’s a powerful lead role. But I think a tighter version of the film might have served her better. I thought it stumbled over too many plot points.
Cool that she got a BAFTA nod, but the person who was snubbed was Toni Collette.
We’re still trying to make Widows happen 2 years later? Lol
2018 Best Actress was such an embarrassment of riches - my Top 10 -
1) Nicole Kidman - Destroyer
2) Samantha Morton - Two For Joy
3) Maggie Gyllenhaal - The Kindergarten Teacher
4) Emma Stone - The Favourite
5) Toni Collette - Hereditary
6) Rachel Weisz - The Favourite
7) Kiki Layne - If Beale Street Could Talk
8) Amandla Stenberg - The Hate U Give
9) Viola Davis - Widows
10) Regina Hall - Support The Girls
So yes, I’d switch in Davis in a heartbeat - to add, I love Gaga, McCarthy and Colman too (in that order) - only Close and Aparicio left me a little cold...
This is one of my very favorite Viola performances if not my favorite ever. She doesn't go for her usual intense crying yet her emotions are as raw as in her Oscar nominated roles. Like in many of her characters, she gets to play someone who adds pain after pain yet it's a completely different take than what she tends to portray, with more anger than tears resulting in a new type of conflicted woman. How she did not get the nomination over Gaga or Close (and that a point these two were the frontrunners) frustrates me to no end. Also, I thought she was as good as Rodriguez, Erivo and Debicki were bad and in my mind, the Oscar snubs (besides being a movie with a black lead and not exclusively about slavery, civil rights in the 60s or maids) were a result of terrible casting (Kaluuya being the other example, deserving also a nomination).
I would've liked to see Davis get the nomination for this performance because it could've marked a pivot point for her career. Davis nominations all come from period pieces which she is of course excellent in but having her nominated for a contemporary performance would've have been an exciting inclusion. It's really bad when you look at the black women who've been nominated for oscars because unfortunately most of them have been nominated for playing maids, slaves and many other roles that don't highlight how excellent black women can be.
I wouldn't have included her in my final lineup because it's pretty solid
Sakura Andô, SHOPLIFTERS
Olivia Colman, THE FAVOURITE
Regina Hall, SUPPORT THE GIRLS
Carey Mulligan, WILDLIFE
Charlize Theron, TULLY
Looking at the lineup I would've easily replace Gaga or Aparicio with Davis. A nomination for this film could've also marked Davis as an actress like Meryl who can get nominated for anything and I certainly would not complain about this happening for Davis.
Final note, Elizabeth Debicki is the true star of Widows and should've won all the awards that year and that she wasn't even nominated is in my eyes a major oversight. The film in general being ignored is major also because i would've fully support a domination of nominations as it's my number 3 of 2018
NATHANIEL R -- Curiously enough, I have the opposite experience with WIDOWS. The seams were glaring on the first viewing, but subsequent watches made me appreciate it more. The wonder of its strengths outweighs the faults, though they are there (that Michelle Rodriguez scene with the widower is such an awful miscalculation). Overall, I watched it three times on the big screen, and every time I revisit it since, there are new details I discover and awe at.
For instance, I love how the costumes tell a precise story of class relations between the women and how we can deduce so much in the epilogue through the way Debicki and Davis are dressed. The sets and the way the city is shot are full of idiosyncrasies that tell what the script refuses to spell out, like Debicki's growing financial troubles (her apartment is slowly drained of objects, getting more Spartan with every new scene). The cutting is inspired, building emotional juxtapositions that the actors purposefully avoid making clear, implying political complexities the script cannily refuses to resolve in a neat manner, and the sound is just perfect. It's disciplined formalism applied to genre filmmaking.
Comparing it to FAR FROM HEAVEN, my runner-up for best Viola Davis film (not performance), WIDOWS is a work of constant discovery for me. As much as I adore Haynes' Sirkian melodrama, I got it the first time I watched it and it has never surprised me, no matter how many times I revisit the movie. Messy ambitious spectacle can be more rewarding than immaculate perfection, at least for me.
Other favorite works of Davis include SOLARIS, ANTWONE FISHER, BLACKHAT, THE UNITED STATES OF TARA, DOUBT and THE HELP, though I strongly dislike those last two apart from Davis' performances. I do think she's great in FENCES, but I have many, many problems with that adaptation of a stupendous play.
everyone -- Thank you for the feedback. 2018 was a year rich in amazing actressing. My Best Actress lineup would consist of the three THE FAVOURITE players, Collette and Davis. Ando is supporting for me, by the way, or else I'd probably nominate her for Best Actress over Weisz and Stone.
Viola absolutely deserved to be nominated. She was nothing short of brilliant in ‘Widows’. It was a very layered performance. I’d have replaced Yalitza or Gaga for Viola.
Viola is astonishing in this - would boot Yalitza in a heartbeat.
I liked the original UK TV series,this was just a night at the cinema stuff,nothing memorable with uneven performances,Viola was solid though but not nom worthy.
I would have nominated
Glenn Close,Toni Collette,Julia Roberts,Melissa McCarthy and Olivia Colman
I like the final lineup just fine. They were all worthy. Davis is fine, too, as always. But my first alternate would be Mulligan. She's fierce.
That really was a crazy good year for the Best Actress category. I love all the actual nominees, but could easily come up with at least 2 completely different lineups that were just as great. If I had to replace one of the actual nominees to accommodate Viola (I definitely think she's worthy of it), it would either be Aparicio or Gaga, but I lean more towards the latter because I feel her performance is stronger in the beginning of her film.
This is a great performance, in a really tough year. Probably one of the best years of the decade. However, I think Viola lost a lot of steam quickly when the film didn’t open well. While I think other actresses, especially white ones, could survive that (Lawrence’s last non), it’s hard to overcome that for a black actress and one who has a film that opens so early in the season.
It's a hard call to make. There were so many good performances competing that year and I mostly like the lineup. Gaga doesn't make the cut for me, but she was a lock. I'd try to find room for Charlize Theron in Tully, Elsie Fisher in Eighth Grade, Toni Colette in Hereditary, or even Regina Hall in Support the Girls before Viola Davis in Widows. That doesn't mean I don't like her performance. I just prefer so many others.
My lineup right now would be Close/Colette/Coleman/McCarthy/Theron with Fisher just missing out.
Close, Colman and McCarthy are guaranteed slot holders of the year. Davis and Colette should have taken the other two spots. "Widows" should not have packed the punch it did. It was thanks to every performer, especially Davis and the simmering rage of Daniel Kaluuya.
As much as I adore Colman and the wackiness that was "The Favorite," Colette honestly gave the only performance I will rewatch. That dinner scene is a complete masterclass.
I feel sorta late to the party but feel so touched what I wrote led to write this piece! That's incredibly lovely of you, Claudio.
I liked Widows and Viola's performance a lot but don't think I'll ever fully love either of them. Admire a lot of the limbs the film wants to go out on and how conspicuously against type she's going, but it's a couple degrees from totally working for me. That said, I'd have been happy to see her get nominated, or if the film turned into the blockbuster everyone hoped it would be. I'm all the way in the tank for those amazing costumes (you're right about how strong the craft is acrosss the board) and Cynthia Erivo's watchful intensity. Her scenes with Davis are some of the best acting in the film.
My own Best Actress lineup for 2018 would've been:
Collette, Hereditary
Colman, The Favourite
Fisher, Eighth Grade
Theron, Tully
Williams, Life and Nothing More
With Sakura Ando and Melissa McCarthy as the closest runners-up, though I could swap in about ten other women as likely alternatives and be just as stoked. An amazing year for leading ladies, even by the usual standards of great actressing.
I tried to watch this on a plane but it was so bad. I was hoping that winning an Oscar would help Viola to get better roles or more attention, but she seems to be perpetually stuck in second gear. I don't think Hollywood really knows what to do with her, and they definitely don't seem very interested. Good luck, but c'est la vie, Oscar curse.
Like many have said, there was an embarrassment of riches that year. I think the Top 5 is pretty solid, but the actress who truly got the shaft was Toni Collette in Hereditary. Good lord, was that a performance!
OMG I totally had the same experience as you, Claudio. The first time I watched WIDOWS, I felt the seams showing as well. I thought it was a great movie but everything didn't gel together.
However, I was going through the guide on my TV one night and saw that it was on! I figured I would stop and watch it. Holy bananas did it hit me the second time around. The scene that really sealed the deal for me me is when Veronica goes to see Alice after she finds out Bash has been killed. The anger, fear, and warmth between Viola Davis and Elizabeth Debicki is so palpable, it moved me to tears. After that, the rest of the movie took on more layers and feelings. Every time it's on, I always stop to watch because it gets better and better with repeat viewings.
C'est la vie, Joan. Indeed.
My favorite Viola Davis has always been in United States of Tara. Did she ever did another comedy? Or at least a dramedy?
I wouldn't have nominated her. She made much less of an impression in this than some of the film's supporting players--particularly Debicki and Kaluuya--and the performance felt like a note-for-note retread of her work on How to Get Away with Murder. She was certainly good, and I could have seen nominating her in a weaker year, but not 2018.
My 5 would have been:
Coleman
Collette
Hall
Kidman
McCarthy
My all time favourite
I am so glad people are finally coming to terms with the fact that Widows wasn't *all that*, and nowhere in the same league as McQueen's other work. It was a messy, bloated, confusing, boring mess.
My 2018 Actress:
Yalitza Aparicio, Roma
Glenn Close, The Wife
Toni Collette, Hereditary*
Lady Gaga, A Star is Born
Emma Stone, The Favourite
Colman and Weisz basically both have half the movie, so they went supporting.
Davis' win for Fences was her most complete performance, but Doubt remains my favorite. What a jaw dropping, incredible moment she gives us there. Few actresses have ever stolen a scene from Meryl Streep, but she does it with gusto.
A really good post, very thankful and hopeful that you will write many more posts like this one.