I want to put in a plug for this Amazon original, I’m Your Woman, starring an excellent duo, Rachel Brosnahan and Arinzé Kene. I’m writing this review a few months later, but it’s been on my list of reviews to throw into people’s arms, because of how fresh and right it feels for the time. Like a lot of Amazon Originals (Vast of Night, I’m looking at you), it straddles genres: I’m Your Woman is equal parts new motherhood drama, crime thriller, home invasion, and road trip. IYW finds ways to cross pollinate each of those stories with the tension and dread of the others.
Kene exudes confidence, kindness, and reticence in a way that makes him the ideal potential romantic lead. His absence is felt as acutely as Brosnahan is forced into hiding with few resources and only her wits about her. One of my favorite types of behaviors for actors is the performance of performance, watching actors stare at themselves in mirrors and pull faces. You see this in classics like Taxi Cab and Bladerunner, but also in films that are reaching back nostalgically into that Silver Age of cinema, like JJ Abrams’s intensely fun alien movie Super Eight (2011) or the intensely weird alien indie movie, starring Scarlett Johansson, Under the Skin (2013). Brosnahan excels at this type of character work, and her assumption of different identities throughout the movie is probably most folks’ major draw.
Because of the timing and the strangeness of releases right now, it’s not likely IYW will ever be much more than a footnote at the end of a very unusual year in movies, but it’s still a testament to the quality of films coming out of Amazon right now, and their attention to cinematography and diverse storytelling.
