An Amazon Studios Picture, Written by Julia Hart, Jordan Horowitz, Directed by Julia Hart.
I’m Your Woman tells the story of Jean (Rachel Brosnahan), a 1970s housewife who is forced to go on the run with her recently ‘adopted’ baby, after her husband betrays his partners in a crime. The film comes from writer-director Julia Hart, and is Rachel Brosnahan’s first major leading role in a film.
From the first moments, and maintaining throughout, this film feels intrinsically a part of the 1970s in every way. The music, the production design, the costumes, and even the performances, all lend themselves to this and it really helps to get you invested and become lost in the world they have created. The soundtrack in particular is impressive, with the 70s songs coming in at exactly the right time, and not only providing some great music for us, but also fitting perfectly with what is happening on screen, as all well-used movie music should. Julia Hart’s film not only feels set in the 70s, but like it was made in that era, and that gives it a unique spin, when many modern films set in the era often just feel like they are trying to imitate what the 70s were.
The story itself is far from unfamiliar for this genre and even though it tries to keep the audience guessing with some twists and reveals, the story plays out in a very straightforward manner. Despite our lead spending much of the film on the back foot and trying to understand what is happening, this isn’t the case for the audience as we are able to guess where most of the story will go and how it will play out. The issue with that, is the film doesn’t seem to understand this and treats it as though the audience is learning about all these twists and reveals at the same time as our protagonist, when in reality we have already had a strong idea of where it is going.
Rachel Brosnahan appears in almost every scene and is very much the lead here, and she is one of the main things to enjoy in the film. The key decision she makes is to play Jean has an authentic suburban housewife in the 1970s, so that when she is caught up in this elaborate crime situation, you really feel like she is a genuine person due to the fears and confusion that she goes through. As the film goes on, Jean comes into her own and doesn’t allow herself to be a victim, which is incredibly empowering and also satisfying to watch, but again Brosnahan is the key to this, as Jean never randomly turns into a kick ass action heroine, she is just a normal person doing what she needs to do to survive these extraordinary circumstances. It’s a real old-school movie star performance and I hope Brosnahan continues to get these kinds of roles to go alongside her award-winning work on Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017) tv show.
Overall, this is almost the definition of a solid film, a traditional studio programmer (now a streaming programmer) with a strong movie star performance. It is all very surface level and is far from perfect, but this is definitely a more than watchable film, with some really talented people involved.
Rating = 3/5
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