Directed by Cate Shortland
Written by Eric Pearson, Jac Schaeffer, Ned Benson
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, and Rachel Weisz
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence/action, some language and thematic material
Runtime: 2 hours 13 minutes
In theaters and Disney+ Premier Access July 9

by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, The Red Herring

Ten months ago I published a piece about the longest gap between Marvel movies since the year and a half between The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 2, lasting 693 days from 2008 to 2010. The most recent theatrical entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Spider-Man: Far From Home, will have come out 738 days when Black Widow arrives in theaters (the gap from Far From Home to WandaVision clocked in at 563 days if you want to include shows). I only bring this up because, for better or worse, MCU is one of the few extant pieces of the monoculture right now. More people seem to engage with this stuff than most other movies. They are the standard bearer for what constitutes blockbuster filmmaking.

When the MCU first started, there was still a honeymoon period where the sheer joy of seeing some of my favorite characters brought to life in ways that reflected why I loved them was enough. This isn’t to badmouth any of the “Phase One” films in particular, just to say that I still can’t believe they were able to bring forth a version of Captain America that both comic readers and new fans adored. We are well past that now, and in some ways, Black Widow brings that to a close, giving a solo outing to the Marvel superhero introduced fourth in the MCU overall after 11 years and 24 movies.

Black Widow comes far later than it should, and not just because the fate of Natasha Romanoff (Scarlet Johansson), was revealed in Avengers: Endgame. How much of the blame can be placed at the feet of Marvel Chairman Ike Pearlmutter, a sexist reactionary who believes that three examples of female-led superhero movies flopping is proof that there’s no money to be made there (Wonder Woman made $822.3 million for DC in 2017, and Marvel’s first female-led entry, Captain Marvel, didn’t start shooting until 2018). Regardless of the reasons why, sexism seems at the root of it, especially when looking back at the character’s prior appearances. She originated as a sort of “honey pot” spy in Iron Man 2 and was called a “slut” and “a complete whore” by two of her costars during the Age of Ultron press tour.

If Black Widow is a sign of progress, perhaps the most immediately noticeable is that there are no camera placements that frame the actresses’ bodies in ways that are overtly sexualized. Also in that the women are allowed to fight just as hard as the men. There’s a scene late in the film where Natasha takes a punch from a man that still feels shocking, and director Cate Shortland plays our own biases against us in order to set up a reversal later. This is the character as she always should have been portrayed. It is a shame so many other characters get a spotlight and are able to draw in fans who, at bare minimum, want to see the MCU moved forward, and Natasha’s merely fills in the gaps between earlier movies (this takes place after Captain America: Civil War, which came out 5 years and one full Phase ago).

Thankfully, Johansson (who gets an executive producer credit here), Shortland, and the writers (which includes WandaVision creator Jac Schaeffer) don’t squander the opportunity. The entire film is rooted in how the value of women is marginalized around the world, as Natasha seeks to finally end the “Red Room '' program that made her into the assassin/superspy we know. It is sort of strange that trafficking girls and young women into becoming brainwashed super assassins is more palatable to mainstream audiences than the more realistic kind of harm that most of these girls experience in real life. This isn’t to say that Black Widow is as confrontational as, say, Promising Young Woman, but I also wouldn’t expect it to be. It would be easy to dismiss this as a watered down thing, but even raising these issues in a mainstream corporate tentpole will reach people that harder fare like Promising Young Women may not (this is not to dismiss PYW at all, just that it is good for both approaches to be out there for people to experience. And to do it with this version of a character that was previously said to feel like a “monster” for being rendered infertile (in Age of Ultron) does actually feel like a reclamation.

The opening sequence of Black Widow–a 1995 flashback in which Natasha, her “sister” Yelena (played by Florence Pugh as an adult), and her “parents” Alexi (David Harbour) and Melina (Rachel Weisz) pose as an American family–creates an intimate space among a harrowing sequence of events. As someone who shows up to these movies excited not for the fisticuffs, but for the next chapter in “my stories,” seeing indie directors like Shortland fully in command of smaller moments with real stars is exactly what I want out of these Marvel adaptations. Whenever all four of these characters share a scene, the Black Widow soars. The relationships between each of them are distinct and extend from the characters’ personalities, and their family dynamic is consistently engaging and evolving over the course of the story.

In other areas, Black Widow’s influences are close to the surface, drawing from Killing Eve, Mission: Impossible, and Bond (we even get a clip from Moonraker). As a genre pastiche, the movie is successful because it works all of those influences into the established mythology so far. This is the first MCU entry in a while where some of the humor feels punched up and not character-based, but the moments of dark sarcasm (often delivered by Pugh) that echo Killing Eve work perfectly with the otherwise serious tone. All told, this is the first MCU entry that feels properly dark and, while moments of real emotion are still punctuated by comic relief, they hang in the air just a bit longer than they normally do.

As a complete package, Black Widow sits in the middle of the MCU pack. It is equally an overdue attempt at doing justice to a character often relegated to the sides of ensemble movies, as well as a demonstration that this character could have easily carried her own sub-franchise. At least there is a good chance this story will resonate with the female fans young and old who have been criticizing Marvel for not doing this sooner. Black Widow is not a “girl power” story, but about fighting for those unable to fight for themselves or see their own value in the world. That’s what every superhero ought to be fighting for, after all.