Finally, with just 18 short months to go before release, we have our very first taste of Ocean’s 8. Today, Warner Bros released the first official image of the film’s principal cast, and it offers several tantalizing glimpses of what we have in store. Needless to say, only a fool would attempt to glean meaningful information from a single nondescript photograph, but that’s what I’m about to do anyway.
The setting
The male-led Ocean’s films were slick and light from start to finish; a deliberate throwback to the golden days of Vegas and the Ratpack. But here? Here the characters are using public transport. Dirty, grimy public transport, with its manspreaders and mouthbreathers and bacteria-slathered handrails. Imagine if George Clooney had been made to use a subway in Ocean’s 11. He’d have driven himself mad looking for the Nespresso machine. No, this Ocean’s film is much more real than that. You know, if you can call the sight of a spotlessly clean and completely empty subway carriage real.
The outfits
What an eclectically dressed group this is. Not the Ocean’s 11 tuxedos for this lot. Oh no. This gang prefers to follow its own path, with Afghan-style cardigans and bold stripes and military jackets wherever you look. Anne Hathaway might even be wearing some sort of flasher’s raincoat too. Ain’t nobody telling these ladies how to dress, no sir.
The sunglasses
Five of the eight cast-members – Rihanna, Mindy Kaling, Awkwafina, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway – are all wearing sunglasses, even though they’re on a train that’s literally underground. From this we can ascertain that they either have eyes so sensitive that they need to be protected even in the case of the total absence of sunlight, or they have something to hide. Either that or they’re just insufferable indoors-sunglasses types, which might explain why the other three look so annoyed.
The hierarchy
The cast aren’t sitting in this formation by accident, you know. No, this is the end result of a long back-and-forth between agents and managers and lawyers and studio heads. “Bullock wants the foreground, and she won’t budge!” yells Hathaway’s exasperated representation to their aggravated client. “I’m not taking the mid-ground unless I get to stand up!” she yells back. Some time later this demand is approved, but only on the proviso that Cate Blanchett gets to wear something high contrast to stand out, while Sarah Paulson pretty much gets a seat to herself up front just because The People v OJ Simpson made her the hot new thing, the cow. Meanwhile Awkwafina sits far behind everyone else, annoyed that she pushed too hard for a silly hat when she should have focused on actual visibility. NB: clearly this didn’t happen, and it’s the oldest trick in the patriarchy’s book to make it seem like women are all out to get each other. But, look, if I don’t do it then the YouTube commenters will.
The facial expressions
Speaking of which, this is clearly a trainful of women who signed up for Ocean’s 8 back when the female-led Ghostbusters film looked like it’d turn out to be a critically acclaimed blockbuster, and not a historic flop that only served to enhance the notion that female-led remakes of beloved films will lose millions of dollars and actively help to fuel the sort of overt online misogyny that pushes the feminist cause back by several decades. Look at Mindy Kaling’s face. If that isn’t the face of a woman who just accidentally ended up stumbling across a meninist comment board, then I don’t know what is.
