The Flawed Feminism of 'Flawless'

by Eric Szyszka

Heist films set in London seem to be all the rage early this year. Jason Statham just carried out The Bank Job and now set a decade earlier we have Flawless. In this by the books picture we're presented with a somewhat uniquely albeit flawed feminist perspective. Demi Moore portrays Laura Quinn, a female manager of a British diamond company, who upon recently being passed over for a promotion yet again gets a little disgruntled. In this male-dominated society the only way out for her is another overlooked member of this upper-crust company – the night shift janitor, Mr. Hobbs, played in a rather jovial manner by Michael Caine.

It seems as if this is a formulaic heist movie that is trying to give it a girl power vibe which falls slightly on deaf ears since in order for her to pull off the crime and win one for the little people, she has to rely on a man. While this man is low-class with a smile, it still projects the under current of while a woman can be intellectual, powerful, and has potential for success, she still ultimately needs a man or some male visage to get any work done. Hobbs adds a lot to this film; probably almost everything in it worth seeing. But you can't help but to hope or wonder how things would've gone if Laura had been given this task on her own.

By the film's mid-point Laura's pro-active character takes a back seat and she takes the role of the audience. She merely tries to figure out what is going on. And so are we. Her objective is no longer a robbery but to decipher the intentions of her superiors as well as what Mr. Hobbs has up his sleeves. Flawless backfires on its seemingly original intent as Laura becomes increasingly confused in the methodology of Hobbs. We start out seeing a powerful woman who can't be stopped and by the end of the film's running time, we see a weak and confused woman.

Hobbs begins to grow from the mold of the janitor into a master criminal. He appears smarter and smarter just as fast as Laura's flower withers. So once Hobbs pulls off the unthinkable the rest of this narrative is: what are his intentions? Political? Monetary? Or personal?

Watch and find out. Then think about how the movie goes from a perhaps strong female driven story to the typical thing the start of the film was resisting. It is time for a real feminist film that doesn't rely on a man; a film that doesn’t allow him to take center stage and become the highlight and main focus as well as point of it all.

The movie even starts and ends with an interviewer looking for strong women of the 1960's and goes to Laura for this purpose [beware Demi Moore in 1960 The Time Machine-like Morlock "old person" make-up]. Once Laura tells her story it just makes me think that reporter should look elsewhere for that strong role model. There are surely better ones out there than this.

As for entertainment value, although slow in parts, Flawless is an interesting story. It just seems to deflate itself in areas that could've been explored in more depth and better light.