She’s sitting in their suburban home when her
husband Eddie (Bill Heck) comes home and
presents a new baby the way someone might
unveil a new toaster. “Who is that?” Jean says.
“He’s our baby,” he answers, beaming. We get
no more information than she does, as the film
immediately drops us into the disorientation of
Jean’s world as the kept woman of a man we soon
learn is some kind of gangster. But even Jean
doesn’t seem to know much about what he does.
Instead of Eddie coming home one night, Jean
is roused by a knock at the door. The man, Cal (a
very good Arinze Kene), explains men are after
Eddie, and soon will be looking for Jean, too.
They have to go. Whatever Eddie did or whoever
his pursuers are remains, like Jean’s own hazy
understanding, in the distant background.
Instead, the film rigorously stays with her as
she and the baby are plunged into a loosely
connected underworld meant to shield her from
whatever trouble is after her. Eventually, she’ll
reach for a gun, herself.
Hart’s schematic framework is a worthy and
intriguing one, yet “I’m Your Woman” struggles
to turn thesis into drama. Jean slowly transforms
into a more conscious, decision-making woman
but her character’s psychology doesn’t fill out.
Even with growing independence, Jean remains a
perplexingly passive genre fragment in a narrative
that never comes into focus — though it continues
to compellingly bring in elements usually kept at
bay in the crime film, like family and race. It’s also
possible that Brosnahan, so identifiable already as
the unflinching Midge Maisel, is too charismatic
and clever to convince us otherwise.
Hart has spoken about how she was pulled to
make “I’m Your Woman” by wanting to follow