When I saw that I’m Your Woman was created by the same team that brought us Fast Color, I was immediately interested.
While 1970s crime dramas aren’t near the top of my list of first choices to watch, the story read like it could be similar to Widows, but in a different setting with a different dilemma. If you enjoy period dramas with shootouts and heists added for flavor, this one is worth your time.
We meet Jean as she’s sitting in her backyard staring at nothing, and we imagine that she’s a bored housewife wanting something more from her life but not sure where to look for it. Then we find out she’s been desperate to have a baby with her husband Eddie, and the losses have been weighing on her.
The confusion begins when Eddie comes home one day with a 3-month-old little boy and announces that the child is theirs. For keeps. Watching Jean trying to figure out how to be a mother and learning to interpret and understand the different sounds and behaviors from this child she’s just met and learning to take care of is a refreshing take, different from the instant supermom that some stories turn women into.
The catch is, Jean and Eddie aren’t a typical 1970s suburban Pittsburgh couple. Eddie is something of a professional criminal, and Jean not only knows it, but flourished in the lifestyle before her desire to be a mother became all she wanted.
Her life is turned sideways again after a job Eddie takes goes wrong, and an old friend, Cal, shows up to take Jean and the baby, Harry, on the run. Eddie crossed the wrong people, and everyone will be looking for her and the baby to use as leverage on Eddie. Cal owes Eddie a favor, and keeping the family safe while the mess gets sorted out is his marker being called in.
Initally, Cal doesn’t want to tell Jean too much about what’s going on, because the less she knows the safer they might be if they get caught, but nothing about what’s going on is anywhere near her comfort zone, and her palpable confusion and panic practically become characters in the car and motel rooms with them.
Naturally, Jean’s uncomfortable emotional state becomes a liability when Cal drops her and Harry off at a safe house. His strict instructions to only plug the phone into the wall to call him, and not to talk with anyone are dismissed when her isolation and loneliness cause her to begin connecting with a neighbor, an older woman who says she was friends with the house’s previous owner.
That tentative start to a relationship doesn’t end well.
When Cal eventually takes them to a better hideout, a literal old cabin in the woods, Jean meets Cal’s family: wife Teri, son Paul and father Art. When Jean finds out this isn’t the first time they’ve had to hide from Eddie’s associates, she learns to trust their experiences with the darker side of the world Eddie and his colleagues work in, and learns to develop her own strength to carry herself and her son through this alive.
There is a benefit to the excruciatingly slow story build that allows us to connect with the tension and suppressed panic Jean is going through, trying to take care of baby Harry, while gleaning what she can about Eddie’s situation from the bits and pieces Cal reluctantly shares. Ultimately, the resilience she develops helps her learn how to stand up and take care of herself, because at the end of the day, she can accept help from those around her who understand these things, but ultimately knows she has to rely on herself to better help herself before those with her can rely on her, too.
The cars, the wardrobe, the music and the attitudes root this story firmly in the time and place weaved around the viewer, and immersion in the uncertain world Jean finds herself following Cal and Teri through is a joy to watch unfold. The one thing I found fault with was how the story slowed down a little too much in a few spots, and for me that diminished Jean’s peril and predicament too far, causing the next moments when danger arrives again to be a little too much of a jolt. Perhaps that was intentional but for me it took a little away from the enjoyment of the story.
Either way, there’s much here to be entertained by, so see it when you can.
3.75 out of 5 stars
In this 1970s set crime drama, a woman is forced to go on the run after her husband betrays his partners, sending her and her baby on a dangerous journey.
Starring Rachel Brosnahan, Arinzé Kene, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Bill Heck, Frankie Faison
Directed by Julia Hart
Written by Julia Hart & Jordan Horowitz
Summary
The cars, the wardrobe, the music and the attitudes root this story firmly in the time and place weaved around the viewer, and immersion in the uncertain world Jean finds herself following Cal and Teri through is a joy to watch unfold. The one thing I found fault with was how the story slowed down a little too much in a few spots, and for me that diminished Jean’s peril and predicament too far, causing the next moments when danger arrives again to be a little too much of a jolt. Perhaps that was intentional but for me it took a little away from the enjoyment of the story.
Either way, there’s much here to be entertained by, so see it when you can.
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