Stream It Or Skip It: ‘I’m Your Woman’ On Amazon, An Unconventional ‘70s Crime Drama Starring ‘Maisel’s Rachel Brosnahan

Ah, the crime drama. A celebrated arm of the genre, a category often dominated by frowning men and their many exploits. The wives in these films are usually granted a scene or two to steal or simply relegated to the background as their husbands get to be part of the action, but in Julia Hart’s I’m Your Woman, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, the script is flipped. Starring Marvelous Mrs. Maisel leading lady Rachel Brosnahan, the ’70s set crime flick has a new tale to tell.

I’M YOUR WOMAN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Jean (Rachel Brosnahan) seems comfortable in her loneliness. When we first meet her, she’s reclining in a lawn chair, a cigarette in one hand and a glass of white wine occasionally in the other. She’s more than surprised when her thieving husband Eddie (Bill Heck) arrives home with a baby boy without much explanation. “It’s all worked out,” he tells her. “This is our baby.” And so he is. Jean calls him Harry, and tries her best to balance motherhood with the lonesome housewife life she’d become accustomed to. Just as she gets close to adjusting to a new normal, she’s startled awake in the middle of the night by a colleague of Eddie’s and told to take a bag of cash and hit the road with baby Harry. She’s aided by Eddie’s friend Cal (Arinzé Kene), who is tight-lipped about almost everything, but soon makes clear that Eddie isn’t just some thief. Thanks to her husband’s poor business decisions, Jean must now exist under-the-radar and on the run, as the people looking for Eddie are also out for her blood.

Jean does her best to acclimate to this new life on the lam, but she’s always looking over her shoulder, skeptical of even the kindest people – and it’s hard to blame her. If her husband is a killer, it seems possible that anyone else could be, too. Over the course of I’m Your Woman‘s two hours, Jean’s character is truly put to the test, and everything she knows about her life and herself is put to the test. With a little help and a lot of change, this lonely housewife might turn out to be more than anyone ever imagined.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: While I’m Your Woman certainly feels in line with a lot of crime flicks like Goodfellas or The Godfather and even American Hustle on occasion – and will definitely appeal to genre lovers – it really is something totally singular. There are so few films that explore the female experience in these kinds of stories.

Performance Worth Watching: She may not appear until the second half of the film, but as Cal’s wife Teri, Marsha Stephanie Blake easily steals every single one of her scenes. There’s a quiet power to her performance, a dazzling, unique energy that, combined with a strong script, allows Teri to transcend any supporting role tropes that we’re used to seeing in this kind of flick. She’s steady and sharp, a force to be reckoned with. Blake delivered a stunning performance in When They See Us last year, and getting the chance to watch her make more magic in I’m Your Woman feels like a gift. We can’t wait to see what she does next.

Memorable Dialogue: I jotted down so many gems over the course of the flick’s two hours, but one exchange between Jean and Teri really stuck with me – there are just so many layers to it in context:

“It’s worse because we have a kid,” Jean says.

“Nothing’s worse for you,” Teri replies.

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do.”

Sex and Skin: None here.

Our Take: From the moment I caught a glimpse of Jean’s oversized sunglasses and magenta dressing gown, I knew I was going to love I’m Your Woman. This is a film rich in both style and storytelling, a slow burn that knows it’s better to show, not tell. The film easily could have gone the direction of so many shallow attempts at making some sort of “empowering” crime drama with a thinly-written feminist hero like so many others have, but instead, Julia Hart’s film has something interesting to say. I’m Your Woman explores themes of identity, race, and motherhood, all while delivering a dreamy visual experience thanks to some gorgeous production and costume design and Bryce Fortner’s cinematography.

Brosnahan shines as Jean, manifesting a stoic, withdrawn woman who seems to have a whole world of wants and needs and dried up dreams bustling beneath her surface. It’s easy to forget Brosnahan can play anyone but Mrs. Maisel, but I’m Your Woman blessedly shows us just how much she has to give. Brosnahan’s Jean reveals herself slowly, like a flower taking its sweet time to bloom; we soon learn what heartbreak led to her strange feelings about motherhood, why she’s so comfortable in her loneliness, and why it seems like a light has gone out inside when we first meet her. Jean doesn’t suddenly feel some kind of purpose in motherhood, like we so often see – blessedly, the film makes motherhood a journey and not some fateful destination, one that is complex and difficult and often painful.

Thanks to Brosnahan’s performance and a thoughtful script, all of Jean’s wins feel earned, and her emotional journey incredibly authentic. The same can be said for the supporting cast, with standouts Arinzé Kene and Marsha Stephanie Blake acting as mesmerizing, steady anchors to Brosnahan’s wobbly Jean as she finds her sea legs. It’s hard to imagine I’m Your Woman working as well as it does without Kene and Blake; Cal and Teri are well-written, fully-fleshed out people who give depth to the film, people who have real needs and lives outside of protecting this woman they hardly know. This isn’t just the Jean show – this is about the way one selfish man’s decisions can impact a series of lives outside his own, and what those lives actually look like. Jean is a woman so dependent on men she doesn’t know how to function once her main source of strength is ripped away, and she quickly tries to latch onto Cal. Many other films would turn Cal into some savior and have every other character focused on fulfilling Jean’s emotional needs (in addition to keeping her alive), but I’m Your Woman doesn’t do that. He gets her where she needs to go and he’s out the door. It’s truly great writing.

I’m Your Woman is a story about the benchwarmers becoming the starters, a tale of ensemble players taking center stage, and boy, is it a good one – and much more interesting than the tired tropes we’re used to seeing. Jean isn’t some ingenue who gets saved in the nick of time, or who suddenly wakes up with crazy skills one day. She’s broken and self-absorbed and occasionally grating, but she’s also learning. The road to self-sufficiency is not a straight one, or one paved particularly well; Jean stumbles and falls time and time again, getting bruised and beaten down in the process. But she gets back up, and eventually, she learns to walk on her own. And that’s what makes I’m Your Woman such a magical movie.

Our Call: STREAM IT. I’m Your Woman flips the script on conventional crime dramas and delivers something equally thrilling and emotionally affecting, thoroughly compelling and truly memorable.

Jade Budowski is a freelance writer with a knack for ruining punchlines and harboring dad-aged celebrity crushes. Follow her on Twitter: @jadebudowski.

Stream I'm Your Woman on Amazon Prime