Black Widow
Director: Cate Shortland
Released: 8th July 2021
Phase 4 of
the Marvel Cinematic Universe has started in a very character-focused direction.
WandaVision (2021), Loki (2021), Falcon and the Winter Soldier
(2021) television series’ have each done well to flesh out characters that may
have not had the opportunity to develop. Black Widow, the first MCU film since
Endgame tries to fill in the gaps of the first female Avenger.
Set in
between Civil War and Infinity War, Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) on the run
from General Ross comes across a package from her ‘sister’ Yelena Belova (Florence
Pugh) who has newly defected from Russia. This package that threatens Dreykov’s
(Ray Winstone) Black Widow program puts Natasha in the crosshairs of Taskmaster
a Russian solider that can mimic any person’s moves. It takes reuniting with
her first family: Yelena, Melina (Rachel Weisz) and Alexei (David Harbour) for Natasha
to finally wipe the red from her ledger.
At first
glance, it can seem odd to do a solo film on an avenger that sacrificed herself
in Endgame. Unlike the MCU television series released this year BW cannot just
pick up where the characters left off from the last Avenger film. However, what
it does is deal with the trauma of Natasha’s
past to make her character's actions make more sense. Especially with her sacrifice in Endgame.
BW brings
up a lot of elements of Natasha’s character from Avengers (2012). The
polite acknowledgment of Natasha’s target giving her the information she needs
with “Thank you for your cooperation” returns. Such as what had happened in the
scene between Loki and Natasha. In one part of that scene when Loki tries to
unnerve her by bringing up Dreykov’s daughter, BW uses this throwaway line to into
a major plot point. Portraying one of Natasha’s darkest character moments using
Dreykov’s child as a pawn to take out the man who took her childhood away. The
ramifications of this violent act as part of Natasha’s defection to Shield
leading to the evolvement of the Black Widow Program into its present-day
iteration.
Natasha’s
motivations in the MCU of wiping her red ledger clean in BW is used as a humorous
scene between Yelena, Natasha, and their ‘dad’ Alexei. Alexei boasts about how
proud he is of his girls happy to see how they grew up to be great assassins with
“your ledgers must be dripping just gushing red”.
That interaction
of Alexei talking like a proud embarrassing dad is telling of the theme of family
featured in BW. Australian Director Cate Shortland expertly weaves the theme of
family throughout BW. From the opening scene in Ohio 1995, Shortland sets up
the comforts and happiness that the family unit was for Natasha. The playful
and caring sisterly relationship of Yelena and Natasha. The motherly lessons
Melina bestows on the girls “pain only makes us stronger” and the dorky but
protective paternal role that Alexi played in their mission. When everyone does
reunite everyone easily slips back into roles. Melina slips back into a motherly
role telling Natasha to not hunch her back. Natasha herself has struggled with
the concept of family, having thought her biological mother abandoned her she
sought to fill that void first by believing in the Russian family living in
Ohio and then her avengers family. She comes to realise by the end saying to Mason
(O.T Fagbenle) “my whole life I thought I didn’t have any family turns out I
have two”. Her Russian family is the one who raised her taught her how to ‘keep
her heart’ despite the harshness of the red room whilst the Avengers became the
family she chose, just as adults we choose our family from the close friends we
make.
Another
theme that is weaved into the narrative is female autonomy. The black widow program
and the red room is only for women because Dreykov (like society) sees women as
beings to take and use as he sees fit. In the title sequence, Malia J’s haunting
cover of Nirvana’s Smells like Teen Spirit (apt song as it fits the setting
of the opening scene) played over the trafficking of Yelena and Natasha and
their subsequent training in the red room. The title sequence shows the constant
training, they are put through on western cultural shows and the harsh weapons
training. The cuts to the clinical rooms where they are given forced hysterectomy
and that not everyone survives the process show. The audience a small snippet
of the lack of control they were trained as.
Whilst
Natasha was trained relentlessly to be a trained killer, Yelena and the current
black widows experienced another level of control. The chemical manipulation that
Dreykov employs is a tool for him to feed his ego and his need for control. You
could see the chemical manipulation as an analogy for society’s way of conditioning
women from an early age to adhere to the male-led society’s ideals of how women
should behave. It is the black widows themselves (from the widow who stole the
antidote and freed Yelena to Natasha and Melina) who take the power back for
themselves, female allyship is the hero of BW.
The
underlying feminist themes are why this film works today rather than in any of
the previous 11 years that Natasha Romanov has been in the MCU. The explosion
of the Me Too movement and the rights that feminism still tackles such as
control over women’s bodies gives this film more profound weight in 2021.
The
influence of the women can be felt in the script as well with actresses
Johansson, Pugh with director Cate Shortland and writer Jac Schaffer. Only
women could include a counter-argument to a man (in this case Alexei) commenting
on a woman acting up is caused by her period. The joke being on Alexei, that as
Yelena explains she does not get her period explaining to him about the forced hysterectomy
ripping out her reproductive organs. Also, only a woman could produce a scene
where two women excitedly talk about how awesome that a piece of clothing Yelena
has bought comes with so many functioning pockets.
Black Widow is an action-packed film that
gives Natasha the send-off she deserves. Pugh stands out as Yelena bringing in
a nuanced emotion to Yelena in a way that does not diminish her prowess. The tied
fight between Yelena and Natasha in Budapest sets up Yelena as the worthy heir
to the title of the Black Widow in the MCU. Black Widow narrative neatly ties
Natasha’s story up filling in the holes of her defection to Shield. The Taskmaster
though not introduced as a hundred per cent comic book accurate. The twist on
the character works with the feminist themes that BW is about. By the end of BW
Natasha is set up in a place heading towards Infinity War and Endgame where her
ledger is finally wiped clean.
5 stars.