I’m Your Woman (2020)

Directed by: Julia Hart | 120 minutes | crime, drama | Actors: Rachel Brosnahan, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Arinzé Kene, Jameson Charles, Justin Charles, Barrett Shaffer, Frankie Faison, Marceline Hugot, Da’mauri Parks, James McMenamin, Bill Heck, Jarrod DiGiorgi

Eddie and Jean live in a nice house in Pittsburgh, sometime in the 1970s. Eddie does something in the local gangster environment, Jean is a bored housewife with a poor cooking talent. Eddie and Jean want children, but because nature is not cooperating, Eddie steals a baby and gives it to Jean as a present. Not much later Eddie disappears without a trace. Jean understands that the gangster world of Pittsburgh is bumbling and she has to get away. But where are she and her stolen child welcome?

Thus begins ‘I’m Your Woman’, a crime drama by director Julia Hart. We follow Jean in her search for a safe home. She knows in the meantime that she is wanted by Eddie’s bosses, but Eddie has prepared for such an emergency well in advance. Measures in which one Cal will play a major role.

‘I’m Your Woman’ has a similar style and environment as the TV series “Fargo”. The same slow pace, the same eye for historical accuracy, the same preference for colorful design, the same kind of crime and the same kind of criminals. But ‘I’m Your Woman’ doesn’t have what makes “Fargo” so strong. Where “Fargo” has exciting plots, elaborate characters and the occasional humor, ‘I’m Your Woman’ is dead serious, with flat characters and a plot that doesn’t want to go anywhere.

And then that stolen, noisy baby. It is introduced at the beginning of the film, as a surreal and (we think) witty idea. That stolen baby and the way he is presented is reminiscent of the humorous work of the Coens and Guy Ritchie. But where as a viewer you expect a crime comedy that puts things into perspective, you are presented with a bone-dry and completely humorless psychological crime drama. With as fremdkörper that stolen baby.

All this makes ‘I’m Your Woman’ a somewhat uncomfortable sit. It is impossible to empathize with the characters, nor to enjoy a good thrill. We kind of understand what it’s all about, the emancipation of a gangster sweetheart, but the mold it’s cast in doesn’t work. Good idea, but poor execution.