Black Widow
Director: Cate Shortland
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, Rachel Weisz, David Harbor
Following the events of Civil War, Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) finds herself on the run after the Avengers are scattered. Alone and in hiding, Natasha finds she must confront her long-forgotten past and deal with the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.
Family is a powerful theme in this film and nowhere is the love and devotion to family illustrated more vividly, than in the character of Black Widow, herself and the familial bond she shares, both with the Avengers, her birth mother, and with her adoptive Russian family she left behind in her childhood. As she once said to Steve Rogers, “I used to have nothing. And then I got this. This job. This family. And I was better because of it. And even though they are gone...I'm still trying to be better."
It is interesting to me, how in all the movies we see Nat in thus far, family and trust have always been particularly important to her. While Dreykov’s daughter was not her family, Nat felt personally responsible and guilty for ending the little girl's life. I think her life-long guilt over this tragedy…the red in her ledger as Loki so aptly put it…stemmed from the fact that she was not in the Red Room at that point. She had broken their power over her. So, this act she committed was done completely on her own....and she feels deeply guilty about it because that child's blood is on her hands.
Love of family is also why Natasha did what she did in Avenger’s: Endgame...because the Avengers became her family and she loved them and trusted them, and she wanted to save them from Thanos. That bond of trust (especially the bond of trust she shares with Steve and Clint), is hard-earned, but it is incredibly strong. Now, this chapter of her life (her childhood and her time with the Red Room, which she has clearly tried extremely hard to close and forget) has been ripped wide open again, and now, she's unexpectedly reunited with another family (two parents and a sister, who may or may not be family) but that loyalty and that love is still there. That is why Nat tells Yelena "It was real for me...you, being my sister". She cannot ignore that bond of sisterhood that she shares with Yelena. She is connected to her sister by love, if not by blood and that same love is why, even as a child, she was trying to protect her sister from this malevolent Red Room. It is also why she ultimately chooses to protect her sister again when they grow up. She does not share blood with any of them, (not her parents, not Yelena) but still, that family loyalty remains.
It is also why she remembers her real mother. I think Nat’s strength…her deep and unbreakable sense of love and loyalty…comes from both her mothers. Her birth mother (whose name I could not find), and her adoptive mother, Melina. Although she was taken from her birth parents because the Red Room purchased Natasha to train as a Black Widow, due to her genetic potential, Nat learns from her adoptive mother, Melina, that in truth, her birth mother fought against Natasha being sold to the Red Room and she even searched for her daughter after Natasha was taken. Indeed, her desire to reunite with Natasha and reveal the damning secrets of the Red Room is what cost Natasha’s mother her very life.
© 2021 Keriane Kellogg. All rights reserved.
Director: Cate Shortland
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, Rachel Weisz, David Harbor
Following the events of Civil War, Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) finds herself on the run after the Avengers are scattered. Alone and in hiding, Natasha finds she must confront her long-forgotten past and deal with the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.
Family is a powerful theme in this film and nowhere is the love and devotion to family illustrated more vividly, than in the character of Black Widow, herself and the familial bond she shares, both with the Avengers, her birth mother, and with her adoptive Russian family she left behind in her childhood. As she once said to Steve Rogers, “I used to have nothing. And then I got this. This job. This family. And I was better because of it. And even though they are gone...I'm still trying to be better."
It is interesting to me, how in all the movies we see Nat in thus far, family and trust have always been particularly important to her. While Dreykov’s daughter was not her family, Nat felt personally responsible and guilty for ending the little girl's life. I think her life-long guilt over this tragedy…the red in her ledger as Loki so aptly put it…stemmed from the fact that she was not in the Red Room at that point. She had broken their power over her. So, this act she committed was done completely on her own....and she feels deeply guilty about it because that child's blood is on her hands.
Love of family is also why Natasha did what she did in Avenger’s: Endgame...because the Avengers became her family and she loved them and trusted them, and she wanted to save them from Thanos. That bond of trust (especially the bond of trust she shares with Steve and Clint), is hard-earned, but it is incredibly strong. Now, this chapter of her life (her childhood and her time with the Red Room, which she has clearly tried extremely hard to close and forget) has been ripped wide open again, and now, she's unexpectedly reunited with another family (two parents and a sister, who may or may not be family) but that loyalty and that love is still there. That is why Nat tells Yelena "It was real for me...you, being my sister". She cannot ignore that bond of sisterhood that she shares with Yelena. She is connected to her sister by love, if not by blood and that same love is why, even as a child, she was trying to protect her sister from this malevolent Red Room. It is also why she ultimately chooses to protect her sister again when they grow up. She does not share blood with any of them, (not her parents, not Yelena) but still, that family loyalty remains.
It is also why she remembers her real mother. I think Nat’s strength…her deep and unbreakable sense of love and loyalty…comes from both her mothers. Her birth mother (whose name I could not find), and her adoptive mother, Melina. Although she was taken from her birth parents because the Red Room purchased Natasha to train as a Black Widow, due to her genetic potential, Nat learns from her adoptive mother, Melina, that in truth, her birth mother fought against Natasha being sold to the Red Room and she even searched for her daughter after Natasha was taken. Indeed, her desire to reunite with Natasha and reveal the damning secrets of the Red Room is what cost Natasha’s mother her very life.
© 2021 Keriane Kellogg. All rights reserved.