I'm Your Woman
AMAZONOn paper, Julia Hart’s I’m Your Woman serves as a refreshing take on a tired genre that catapults Rachel Brosnahan into the cinema stratosphere she so deserves to be in. Yet, Hart’s take on the material ultimately results in a bland, yet stylised, crime thriller that only shows a bare hint of the promise it had.
Brosnahan is Jean, the titular woman of the movie. Her husband, Eddie (Bill Heck) is a shady criminal of sorts, but Jean doesn’t ask too many questions as long as money is coming in. One day Eddie arrives home with a young baby in tow, explaining the couple are now parents. Said baby now (his name is Harry) becomes important and emotional baggage for the following story - Eddie doesn’t come home one evening and Cal (Arinze Kene) arrives to help hide Jean and the baby from whoever it is that Eddie has ticked off.
It’s clear that the ‘twist’ Hart is going for is to throw a baby into this ‘on-the-run’ thriller and it works to begin with. Jean’s maternal instincts, her need to put the baby before herself and, subsequently Cal, put the trio into further danger and the first forty minutes of the film feel eerily tense despite there being no obvious presence tailing them. However, things run out of steam all too quickly and it’s not long before the baby is taken out of the equation completely in a way that seems even Hart got tired of her supposed twist on the genre fairly soon.
It’s a shame that Cal leaves the story early on. Leaving Jean and the baby in the safe hands of his wife and family, the interesting dynamic slowly building between Jean and Cal is side-lined and never resumed. Brosnahan and Kene don’t play the relationship flirtatiously - in fact it feels that they elevate the slim dialogue they have to work with - but there’s a certain kinship between a man and a woman witnessed here that is rarely present in film. It’s one of I’m Your Woman’s best elements, which makes it even more tragic that it doesn't get the attention it deserves.
It feels like Hart made the incorrect call on several decisions here and the result is a disappointing shell of a good movie. Perhaps sticking with the baby element would have caused the film to suffer, but then the option of extricating that whole plotline could’ve cleaned things up. The film meanders between melodrama and crime thriller, whereas a focus on one of these genres could have helped streamline the story and cut out the boring bits. I’m Your Woman isn’t a memorable entry into the crime drama world but it’s a small step in shaking up the genre in the right way.