Rachel Brosnahan has, of course, come a long way from playing “Girl” on a 2010 episode of Gossip Girl (fittingly, for her Mrs. Maisel-oriented Daddy issues, it was called, “It’s a Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad World”). She is no longer in the background of a millennial-saturated New York, but the star of a 60s-era one (even if the 60s in New York still prove to be banal and overblown). As such, she has earned her stripes (beyond simply being Kate Spade’s niece) as a leading lady. Enter I’m Your Woman, Julia Hart’s fifth feature (and the fourth she’s directed herself). As the eponymous woman, Jean (Brosnahan) lives a life of comfort, albeit rather “low-budget” comfort. Case in point, during the first scene we’re introduced to her Pittsburgh surroundings, we see her in a hopelessly depressing backyard, complete with quintessential yellow-toned lawn furniture of the era. Bedecked in her oversized sunglasses and a magenta robe that looks plucked from a Playboy Bunny’s closet, she swigs her white wine and peers down to see some tags are still attached to her garment (her husband is a criminal, after all).
Smoking her cigarette resignedly, Jean narrates, “Eddie and Jean met and fell in love. Eddie and Jean got married and bought a house. Eddie and Jean were gonna have a kid, but didn’t. So every morning, Eddie kisses Jean, Eddie leaves the house, and Jean’s alone.” In other words, she had long ago given up on the idea of either having a child or ever feeling as though she had a true connection to anyone. Eddie (Bill Heck) is a provider, sure, but it’s clear that Jean has come to realize he can’t offer much more than that–certainly not anything on a higher emotional level. And after having just shared with the audience that she couldn’t have a child with Eddie, it is just as shocking to us as it is to her for Eddie to appear in the door with a baby he asserts is theirs. Already in this moment, there is an immediate tinge of Raising Arizona, the Coen brothers classic in which Herbert I. “Hi” McDunnough (Nicolas Cage) is the infertile one between him and his new wife, Edwina (Holly Hunter). But like Eddie, Hi also has the criminal record that prevents them from adopting a child to solve their “barren” woes. So it is that the two decide to steal a baby. Here, Eddie claims that the child was unwanted by its young and unwed mother, and that everyone involved is getting what they wanted out of it. Knowing what we come to know about Eddie, that could very well be a lie. But it’s a pretty one, and Jean can’t deny her newfound reverie.
Ignoring the fact that there seems to be an odder tinge than usual to a meeting Eddie has with his goons in their house, Jean is quite shocked to be awakened in the middle of the night by one of said goons as he packs her bags and tells her that Cal (Arinzé Kene) will be taking care of her now. It’s here that the Raising Arizona plot shifts to a more The Mexican one, with Cal as something of the James Gandolfini-esque protector of a woman he doesn’t know and has no vested interest in apart from doing what he’s told by the one he is beholden to. Cal, as it turns out, is black. Which wouldn’t be a big deal except that it’s the 70s, and racism gets even more free rein than it does now.
Considering the landmark Supreme Court case “allowing” interracial marriage had occurred freshly in 1967, it’s still a hard sell to believe that nuptials between a black woman and a white male would have gone down easily–even in the more “look the other way” crime underworld. Yet that’s what Hart wants us to believe from the Union state perspective of Pennsylvania perhaps being slightly more tolerant, even in the backwater roads where Cal and Jean end up getting pulled over during their quest to find hidden shelter from the fallout of Eddie’s actions. Jean insists Cal is her husband, and that they simply fell asleep while driving to their new house. Miraculously, the officer listens to the nice white lady holding a baby and goes on his way.
From there, they arrive at the “safe house” that seemed to be put into place for whatever this plan of Eddie’s was long ago. Isolated from any sense of a city and not even near a park, Jean is further horrified to learn that Cal won’t even be staying with her. She’s instead told that if any kind of shit hits the fan, she’s to call him using the emergency phone (unplugged from the wall at all other times) with the number provided. Otherwise, talk to no one–make no friends and no acquaintances. And perhaps Jean would have done just that–after all, she’s a seasoned pro at being alone. Alas, the resident busybody of the block, Evelyn (Marceline Hugot), decides to be too friendly to ignore, even showing up again after Jean’s frosty treatment to provide her with a home-cooked meal (Jean, a self-admitted “terrible cook,” can’t even crack an egg properly, so of course she takes the bait). But befriending Jean will prove to be nothing but trouble for Evelyn as the former is honed in upon by rival henchmen seeking to vindicate the death of Marvin–the big boss Eddie decided to kill.
With the heat on Jean closing in ever more intensely, Cal decides to take her to an even more secluded milieu: his family’s cabin in the woods. It’s at this point Jean somewhat disappointedly learns that the reason he can’t stay with her is because he’s with someone already–his wife, Teri (Marsha Stephanie Blake). So it is that she’s given new instructions for what to do in case she’s found again, left alone for what must feel even longer this time. With many scenes during this particular hideaway seeming to be pulled from Taylor Swift’s Folklore tableau, Jean has plenty of time for contemplative reflection. Even if it’s more that slightly fraught with anxiety that the wailing sounds of a baby do nothing to calm.
At this point in the film, we’ve come to realize that Jean is, in many regards, very similar to Brosnahan’s now most well-known character, Miriam “Midge” Maisel. Not in verbosity or a crack-addled delivery of her dialogue, but in terms of having her existence upended by an arbitrary decision her husband made without really thinking how it would throw her life into a tailspin. Both women are underestimated precisely because they’re “the little wife.” Expected to do nothing more than “be there” and serve as an ornament to her husband’s home, her husband’s “accomplishments.”
As Jean begins to unravel more about the kind of man Eddie really is, she starts to take back her own power as she distances herself from any remaining sentiment toward him. While, at certain moments, a title like I’m Your Woman starts to be called into question, by the end, we see that Jean is, in fact, “your woman.” The woman who comes through, the woman who gets the job done. That is, as usual, what women must do in order to survive and thrive, regardless of the decade.
