Notes On Marvel’s ‘Black Widow’: Uneven Character Dynamics Still Makes For An Enjoyable Send-Off
As a character, Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff has always had one of the richest and most intriguing backstories in all the Avengers, and her standalone film is truly long-overdue. And though the action and pacing in her farewell movie is more than sufficient to keep viewers watching (it truly is an enjoyable film, everything else aside), one can’t help but think Natasha’s story and universe could’ve had benefited from better direction. There is a whole untapped wealth in the implications of the widows, women forced into subservience by a middle-aged man with a suit and a god complex, and yet these are never fully brought to surface. Instead, the film supplies us with visuals of deadly, scarily synchronized female assassins, but ironically never giving them much depth or agency.
The topic of Natasha’s family has always been a tricky one throughout her decade in the MCU, and at times it’s this very conflict that serves as the apex of the film. But Natasha’s ragtag group of foster family members, although individually very likeable characters, never find quite the right footing in their dynamics. what we do know is that Natasha’s foster family are undercover Russian spies, and there’s some tension in the scenes that reveal the truth, and yet much of the gravity that should be in these scenes are instead reduced to weird, uneven dialogue, that then gives way to the more thrilling action scenes. Rachel Weisz, David Harbour, and Florence Pugh as her foster family all give excellent performances and bring life to their characters, and yet the script fails to provide them with the right words to fully bring depth to their scenes together — which is a shame, as they truly could’ve been some of the best moments in the film.
At times, Black Widow plays like a dark fairytale, but it never feels fully committed to being one. It’s an espionage thriller with a heavy hand in the female empowerment department, but it never goes full throttle in that regard either. It’s a tale on the ties of family and the need to belong, but it fumbles in its dynamics. What it is, though, is a hell of a lot of fun as a send-off to one of the first members of the Avengers and principal characters of the MCU, as well as a hand-off to Black Widow’s future in the MCU (spoiler alert: it’s her sister, Yelena).
Nevertheless, watching Black Widow has made me feel the kind of pure unabashed excitement and possibility that only these Marvel films are able to provide. And several of the scenes had me truly wishing the best for Johansson’s black widow, having grown up watching her as the first principal female avenger in the series, despite knowing her fate in “Endgame”. In the end, that very feeling of possibility — though it may be fleeting and unstable — that’s a superpower in itself, too.
