BLACK WIDOW (2021)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

"The best part of my life was fake"-- Yelena Belova, Natasha Romanoff's fake sister.

At the time that BLACK WIDOW was released, some critics caviled against its implicit "girl power" theme. But as I watched the film again in 2024, WIDOW seems like a model of nuanced subtlety next to a bore-fest like last year's MARVELS.

That said, I agree that WIDOW was extremely compromised, though not for any reason of gender politics. I've long been baffled by the decision of the MCU show-runners to kill off Natasha in AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR. It served no purpose save to add an extra beat to the evolving Hawkeye story, though his descent into vigilantism was predicating on losing not Natasha but his nuclear family. Nevertheless, the Black Widow's only feature film was doomed to be sandwiched in between the events of CAPTAIN AMERICA CIVIL WAR and AVENGERS INFINITY WAR. 

WIDOW is like the better MCU films of the previous Phases: an admixture of weaknesses and strengths. One of the biggest narrative weaknesses involved the assertion by previous MCU films that Natasha gained her skills from a Soviet training program devoted to subject young orphan girls to rigorous training, so that they became perfect spies and assassins. I don't remember why the original comic book continuity concentrated the program only upon young girls. But whether the comic book came up with a good justification or not, WIDOW needed one. Without such a rationale, there seems no good reason for the Soviets not to train male children as well-- except that credited screenwriter Eric Pearson wanted to focus on female disempowerment. 

And yet, WIDOW actually validates the structure of the American nuclear family, which is usually an object of mockery by writers on the extreme Left. This is one of the movie's strengths, since, as the above quote suggests, even a fake family is better than no family.

In 1995, four Russia agents infiltrate suburban America for three years, pretending to be a regular family while stealing secrets from the U.S.'s spy-organization SHIELD. "Mom" is Melina (Rachel Weicz), an older Black Widow assassin, trained in the Soviet "Red Room." "Dad" is Alexei (David Harbour), whose previous distinction was not for being an undercover agent (which one might think a requirement for a deep-cover mission), but for being The Red Guardian, Russia's imitation of the then-missing Captain America. "The kids" are little Natasha and Yelena, both orphans inducted into a spy-program, though not yet into the aforementioned Red Room. However, SHIELD tumbles to the illicit espionage. The four spies are forced to flee to Cuba, and Melina is wounded, with the result that she's believed, falsely, to be dead. The spy-team's grateful director Dreykov (Ray Winstone) rewards the escapees by sentencing the girls to become Black Widows and sending Alexei to prison for no clear reason.

Following this prelude, the action proper begins. Natasha (Scarlet Johansson) is on the run after having defied the American government over the Sokovia Accords. She goes into hiding but is contacted by a letter from fake sister Yelena (Florence Pugh). Yelena has somehow come across a chemical that can reverse the brainwashing tech used upon the Black Widows. (When did Natasha escape said brainwashing? No MCU ever addressed the matter, probably because the tech was a belated retcon.) Natasha contacts Yelena in Budapest, where the two of them are assailed by the forces of Dreykov, who objects to their interference with the Red Room program. He even has his own costumed agent, a skull-masked individual named The Taskmaster. 

Natasha and Yelena want to find the Red Room to free all the enslaved females, but they don't know where it is. They break their former "dad" Alexei out of a Siberian prison, but he doesn't know where Dreykov is. Unlike the two "daughters," though, he knows that Melina survived her injuries and where to find her. (I guess if the two "sisters" had known all that, they would have left "Dad" in prison.) All of these coincidences serve to unite the fake family, and the four Russian agents are obliged to deal with their feelings toward one another-- easily the best part of the film, though not without flaws. Tensions aside, the foursome unite (albeit with some glitches along the way) to take down Dreykov and free the other Widows-- none of which sustains much emotional interest. (How much does it mean that the female agents break their programming, given that they're still stuck in Mother Russia?) Natasha reaches the end of her emotional journey and leaves to synch up with her actions in AVENGERS INFINITY WAR. A post-credits sequence, taking place after Natasha's passing, sets up a story-beat for Yelena to participate in the forthcoming HAWKEYE teleseries.

Director Cate Shortland had only made three previous indie films, so that probably explains the unexceptional, mechanical feel of all the action-scenes. She probably just turned all that stuff over to the FX technicians. But she probably deserves some credit for the better dramatic scenes, and possibly for some of the humor that works (though, not surprisingly, a lot of the jokes don't land). Of the four main characters, Melina is the least successful. While her "daughters" are serving the Soviet state as assasins, their "mom" works for Dreykov, and she only rebels against him when the other three members of her family give her a chance to fight back without risking her own death.

I also didn't think Alexei's character was injected just to make men look bad, though I don't doubt that Pearson was partly recycling a trope from his previous outing on THOR RAGNAROK, which was a "toxic female" MCU movie. Alexei becomes the Red Guardian out of loyalty to his country, and he doesn't quite realize that his superiors have made him into a show-pony, much as the American authorities did with Captain America during WWII, according to THE FIRST AVENGER film. He's got fatter in prison, and that was certainly for some lame comedy, but he remains a stand-up guy for the most part, in contrast to the deceptive Dreykov. And though he never gets to fight his opposite number Captain America, Pearson gives his version of the Taskmaster a Captain-like shield, so that when Red Guardian fights Taskmaster, this battle indirectly fulfills Alexei's desire to serve as the Champion of Russia. He has some good lines and is much more likable than "Mother" Melina-- all of which I attribute to the writer's desire to validate "family values" against those of a ruthless and unfeeling state. (Just try to find a negative characterization of modern Russia in any MCU film released after WIDOW.) I wish this flick had been more stylish and colorful, but I respect the basic intent of the story if not all aspects of its execution.