The Kitchen: Melissa McCarty, Elisabeth Moss and Tiffany Haddish

The Kitchen is the tale of 1970s three New Yorkian wives who pick up the slack when their kingpin husbands go to prison. These queenpins quickly adapt to the crime world; asserting their dominance over their male subjects, managing rackets and 'seeing off' their competition with an absolutist mentality that might shock even their husbands.

The film marks the feature directorial debut of Andrea Berloff, Academy Award-nominated co-screenwriter of Straight Outta Compton, who has proven a penchant for challenging audiences with imperfect characters in imperfect environments doing imperfect things.

Just after Steve McQueen's 2018 gritty thriller Widows that focused on, well, four (not three) mob wives who pick the slack of their dead (not imprisoned) husbands, The Kitchen already feels familar. Exploitation and murder are major themes in both, but The Kitchen seems somewhat lighter than its predecessor. Berloff's new script still proposes a dramatic film with comedic moments, not a comedic film with dramatic moments.

Melissa McCarthy returns as the serious lead in another film heist, albeit it was a very different story in Marielle Heller's Can You Every Forgive Me? last year, which earned the actor an Oscar nomination for her sensitive portrayal of author and literary forger Lee Israel. McCarthy will be joined by Elisabeth Moss of The Handmaid's Tale and Tiffany Haddish of The Secret Life of Pets 2.