‘Widows’ editor layers suspense into Steve McQueen’s crime thriller

The opening scene in Widows intercuts moments among the married couples and a police car chase. — 20th Century Fox

More than five years ago, while finishing the Academy Award-winning 12 Years A Slave, director Steve McQueen told editor Joe Walker about a different project he had in mind: an adaptation of the hit 1980s British television drama Widows from crime writer Lynda La Plante.

The movie adaptation, co-written by McQueen and Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl, Sharp Objects), is set in modern-day Chicago, where four women (played by Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki and Carrie Coon) find themselves alone and unprotected after a heist gone wrong leaves their criminal husbands dead.