I Am Your Woman Brings Heart Back Into TheThriller

I’m  Your Woman(Amazon Prime)

Starring Rachel Brosnahan,Arinzé Kene,Marsha Stephanie Blake,Bill Heck,Frankie Faison

Directed  by Julia Hart

Rating: *** ½

  The last  sentence of dialogue in this superbly crafted  thriller with a female hero who burns up the screen like  a  meteor  of  muliebrity  is  potently pertinent.

“You are  not supposed to look back,” a little  boy reminds   our heroine  Jean, played by  Rachel Broshnan  , our marvelous Mrs Maisel now on a  different  trip altogether.vib

 Apart  from calling it  a very dark  thriller  I can’t think of how to define this fiercely individualistic drama  about a woman coming  of rage . Quirky images  carpet this trippy drama  but  never overwhelm it. You will smile with  gratitude and relief when two little  children  will smile at you at the end from their hiding place away from  the  brutal  mafia.

You will be puzzled by the opening sequence  where Miss Broshnan (Mrs Maisel to  you)  sits in a brand new red dress trying to rip off the price tag.It’s only later that I realized  what the opening meant. Rachel’s loving husband provides her with everything except a sense of  emotional security. A child is  desperately  needed . Rachel’s husband  shows up with a heart-stealing baby in his hands.

 “He’s yours,”says the husband, and then  disappears. The  screenplay(brilliant , simply brilliant, take  a bow Julia Hart and Jordan  Horowitz)  then follows Rachel’s escape plan with a mysterious strong  and silent black man Cal(Arinze Kene) whose  job it  is to  protect Rachel and the baby at any cost. Rachel has a million  questions. Cal doesn’t talk much. He has plenty of say. But he  can’t say  anything.

My  favourite parts  of the film are inside the home where Rachel is hidden  with her baby(an absolute  natural-born scenestealer). Rachel cooking ,eating, preparing her child’s milk,  pacing up and down with him when he cries, throwing the  eggs on the kitchen wall in the frustrations of  the eerie silence….then a kindly neighbour whose arrival breaks the  silent  monotony…The  narrative simmers and  crackles with   chilling signals  of  danger lurking around the corner.

You feel  for Rachel and the baby.You want to protect them  as they move closer and closer to danger until  you are right in the middle of mayhem with Rachel  and the baby. The post-midpoint half is far noisier and  frantic  , with screeching cars and screaming  plot points that  beckon our  interest  into  the  bloodshed.

As Rachel runs with her newly-found friend ,a  tenacious secretive woman named  Teri(Marsha Stephani Blake) all hell breaks loose. The grand restraint of  the  earlier scenes is  hastily pushed aside for some serious oldfashioned  car chases.This  is  set in the 1970s, although no one points out the  era. Why should they? They are  too busy trying to stay  alive to care  about  sharing information.

At one point in the  confident  energetic yet tempered rather than temperamental  narrative  patriarch  lulls Rachel’s baby to sleep when the baby wakes up in the night. He refuses  to  let her feed  him.

“He should know now rather than later that  people don’t eat in  the middle  of the night,” the patriarch announces . The words  reverberate  across this story  of  learning life’s better lessons before it’s too late. Don’t miss this.