In “Widows,” director Steve McQueen (“12 Years a Slave”) and co-writer Gillian Flynn (“Gone Girl”) infuse the caper film template primarily by putting women in charge. Set in Chicago, the movie casts Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki and Cynthia Erivo as a gang of first-time bandits. Flynn says, “I wouldn’t have signed on to write a male heist movie. In our very first meeting I told Steve, ‘I want to see what it looks like if you don’t have a caregiver for your child when you’re planning a heist. He liked these ideas of having women who are juggling kids, juggling lives, mothers-in-law, or in the case of Elizabeth’s character, Alice, a horrible mom.”
Source: latimes.com – Los Angeles Times