Wingwomen

The Art of Hanging Out While Armed

The "one last job" movie usually loses me before the briefing is over. Some tired professional says they want out, a cruel boss drags them back, and the genre expects that worn-out setup to feel fresh one more time. That's where I assumed *Wingwomen* was headed. Mélanie Laurent has other interests. The heist framework is there, but she's clearly more amused by the people rattling around inside it than by the mechanics of the score.



The opening tells you that immediately. Carole and Alex are soaring in wingsuits, which sounds like the start of a sleek action showcase. Laurent doesn't play it that way. The real focus is the chatter in their earpieces. Alex is mid-spiral over a guy who has already dumped her, and Carole is fielding the complaint with the patient irritation of someone who has heard variations on this story a hundred times. The danger is almost secondary. What matters is the rhythm between them. The movie lands less as a thriller than as a hangout comedy that happens to involve sniper rifles and stolen art.

What makes that work is Adèle Exarchopoulos. After *Blue Is the Warmest Color* made her famous for raw, bruised vulnerability, it's fun to watch her bend that energy into something comic and unruly. Alex is lethal, clingy, childish, and weirdly endearing all at once. Exarchopoulos uses her body beautifully here. She doesn't simply sit beside Carole; she sprawls across her space like a kid who forgot the concept of personal boundaries. In that scene where she curls up and sucks her thumb in bed, the performance reveals the whole contradiction at once: this woman can kill a room, but she still looks like she wants somebody to tuck her in.



Soon enough, the plot barges in. Carole is pregnant and desperate to get out, but the Godmother — Isabelle Adjani, magnificently brittle and frosty — forces one more art theft on them. They bring in a young getaway driver named Sam, and the pair becomes a trio. From there the movie loosens up even more. The training scenes are shaggy and digressive in a way I actually liked: target practice in the woods, arguments about driving, sideways conversations about lying for a living and whether any of them can picture a future outside it. Sheila O'Malley caught the appeal exactly when she wrote that "the film has an almost ragged human energy, and the priority is the human relationships."



Where the film stumbles is when it remembers it is supposed to be an action thriller. The shifts in tone can be rough. One scene plays like airy screwball banter, the next turns bloody or suddenly mournful. The ending lunges toward melodrama so hard that it feels imported from another movie. Maybe Laurent wants that jolt. Maybe the script just overreaches. Either way, whether it lands probably depends on how much grace you're willing to extend by the final stretch.

That grace was easy enough for me to give. There is something refreshing about a caper movie that trades stoic male cool for women who gripe about relationships, fret over pregnancy, and clearly enjoy being around each other. *Wingwomen* isn't built like a perfect machine. Good. Its rough edges are part of why it feels like it has a pulse.