Scarlett Johansson and her farewell to Black Widow: “You will see Natasha like never before”

Directed by Cate Shortland and produced by Kevin Feige and now on the big screen (and on Disney + with VIP access from July 9), Black Widow see Scarlett Johansson take on (perhaps for the last time) the role of Natasha Romanoff former Russian spy he found in the Avengers his real family, even going so far as to sacrifice himself for them in Avengers Endgame (last title of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to arrive in theaters, in April 2019).

A pause that seems to have lasted a century, the one that has elapsed in the meantime due to the pandemic, which has seen the release of Black Widow, now finally at the cinema, postpone month by month (from April 2020 to July 2021) and in streaming, ready to give those answers that fans have been waiting for for a long time, but above all to show the more human and fragile side of the only woman of the original lineup of the Avengers.

«When you have a character like Natasha Romanoff, you wonder how she managed to keep her heart alive, despite all the pain and suffering she went through. His deep love for the people we see in the film, and his extreme sacrifice for them in Endgame, are detailed in Black Widow. We will finally understand who Natasha really is ”he says in our video interview David Harbour, who plays Red Guardian, the Russian version of super soldier Captain America, and Natasha’s adoptive father, when in 1995 they are sent to Ohio on an undercover mission.

Natasha is not just the spy, the agent or the Avengers. IS a woman who makes her strength of her vulnerability, his weapon of guilt, which allows her to move forward and find answers to those questions that block her. “Seeing this side of Nat was extremely interesting. His family has always been the Avengers, so it was not taken for granted to tell another type of dynamic, like the one with his adoptive family “he tells our microphones. Scarlett Johansson.

The stainless Rachel Weisz instead she plays Melina, one of the first Black Widows on the spy program. Growing up in the “Red Room” she only knows that world, and when she finds herself on a mission to mother Nat and Yelena (played by Florence Pugh), she realizes that something has changed, but she realizes it only years later, when she finds herself with the “Adopted daughter”, who treasured one of his teachings (to keep the heart alive you must understand that pain only makes us stronger). “This aspect, if we apply it to our reality, turns into a very powerful sounding board, because we are coming out of this pandemic, and we hope that this has made us all stronger” says the English actress.

Per Florence Pugh, Johansonn’s perfect heir, the real strength of the film is normality: «It’s like pulling the curtain of the Wizard of Oz and seeing that in the end they are just normal people. They have a heart, and they are normal people who deal with ordinary things, only they do it with the superhero onesie on».

Gender equality also passes through i cinecomics. If ten years ago we would never have imagined a successful stand alone for a superhero, after a decade we can see on the big screen a film that speaks without half measures, and which shows in a few lines human frailty (like when Yelena, aching since the last fight, he buys ibuprofen at the supermarket, remarking that Thor would never need a similar remedy), but also the ability to be able to respond in kind when the usual, and stale, accusation: “Ah, you the cycle! That’s why you behave this way “.

Being able to talk about it in the tone used in Black Widow was certainly liberating for the director, Cate Shortland: “The movement MeToo it had just come to life when we started shooting the film. These are issues that all the women we have known have had to face. We often use humor, other times we attack directly. These different tones were fundamental in the film to analyze this situation, also thanks to the extraordinary work of Scarlett and Florence ».