Review by Daniel Emery Taylor
If you've read many of my reviews, you know that I talk a lot about fairness in reviewing and judging a film by what it set out to accomplish. You don't judge action films by their lack of intelligent dialogue. Action movies are supposed to have a lot of blood and explosions. Did people die? Did stuff blow up? Were you entertained for two hours? It was a good film. It accomplished what it set out to accomplish.
Reviewing an independent film is a similar procedure. Having worked on both big budget Hollywood projects and small independent sets, I am quite familiar with the particular limitations independent films face. It's not incredibly difficult to get a good-looking movie with a budget of twenty million dollars. It becomes much more difficult when you're working with a budget of five thousand. For that reason, you will not usually hear me mention things I consider outside of the director's control. I won't talk much about sound or picture quality. I won't mention special effects unless they are exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. For the sake of fairness, I will generally stick to issues of vision, acting, script, and pacing. These are directly controlled by the people involved and are not subject to budget confines.
"Widow" is a largely effective tale of Vivian Potts, a recent widow, who is having disturbing dreams of her deceased husband, Alex. The dreams are cryptic and disturbing, leading her to believe that perhaps Alex is trying to bring her a message from the beyond. Vivian finds out that her sister, Sherry, is having similar dreams, leading them both down a path of twists and turns that brings us to the surprising finale.
I don't really want to go into the plot too much because the whole story hinges on one very important revelation at the end. The bulk of the film focuses on Vivian's relationship with Sherry, which really seems strained for the most part. You get the unspoken notion that Sherry has always been the "bad" girl while Vivian is a little more virtuous. This aspect is explored even deeper with the introduction of Sherry's boyfriend, Charlie.
Most of the mystery involves the death of Alex. How did it happen? What was the reason? Was it an accident, natural, or something more insidious? As the two sisters piece together the messages from their dreams, the picture becomes much more clearer. How was the marriage? What was the nature of Sherry's relationship with Alex? All of these questions are answered by the end.
The acting, honestly, was not the best I've seen. Some of the performances were a little wooden and unnatural. This is a common problem in independent film, of course, and the actors here are really no worse than those of equal caliber films. "Widow" also falls into some other familiar independent film traps, mainly long atmospheric shots of the sky and trees. (Here's a hint: it's filler.) We know that you think you are being incredibly artistic and deep, but we know you're really trying to pad a forty-five minute movie out to an hour.
Aside from those small criticisms, the film is actually quite good. The story is fantastic and the pacing is appropriate, keeping you interested until the end. In that, the film competently achieves what it sets out to accomplish. If you're at all a fan of independent cinema, I highly recommend "Widow."