Not to be a MCU fan on main, but I need the meta practice anyway.
The boat scene of Black Widow 2021 charms me. We open with Natasha staring at herself in a mirror, and if that's not a narrative tool to tell us this movie is going to be about her facing herself and who she is, I don't know what is.
It also signals that this is a private moment. She's alone in a bathroom where she has the time and space to stare at herself in the mirror for a moment. She's vulnerable, not protected. She's not looking over her shoulder.
She braces herself above the sink for a moment, probably processing everything that had happened recently (see Captain America: Civil War). I imagine she might be replaying moments, wondering what's happened since she went into hiding. She had to cut a lot of lines to get away safely, but that means she can't use those lines anymore. She's working with less information than she's had access to for a long time. No KBG, no SHIELD, no Avengers, nothing. It's not that she can't work without those resources, but she hasn't had to make do without them recently. She's back to her roots; she's back to herself. She's actually alone again.
A note to the vulnerability thing: the next shot we get is her washing her face. I'm not convinced that the actress, Scarlett Johansson, isn't wearing ANY makeup, but I don't think the character is. If she's alone, and if she's disappeared properly, nobody's going to be looking at her face. Who is there to look put together for? Might as well wash off the mask.
Unbeknownst to the audience, the whole time, Natasha had a live feed of a building showing on a phone. The figures aren't totally clear, so we can't completely make out what's being shown through the live feed, but we don't have to. The movie cuts to the action: soldiers in tactical suits bearing weapons, the familiar face of Everett Ross (which in the context of CA:CW, isn't exactly a friendly face), and an officer assuring him that all exits are covered.
If Natasha has this playing on her phone, this location must be important. She's monitoring the building, she's expecting something to happen. It could be her watching the perimeter, it could be her keeping tabs on someone else from the Sokovia fallout.
Ross isn't tense, but he isn't relaxed. He tells those around him to stay alert, so he's expecting resistance. He's one of the few people in frame not wearing any armor or protection, and judging from his tone, he doesn't have high expectations for how this is going to go. While he narrates that he's sending in a squadron, we're shown a sniper on the roof.
It would seem that Ross is learning from previous experience. He's not giving whoever he's here for (at this point, it feels strongly like it's Natasha) ANY way out, because any weak point will be exploited and taken advantage of. They've been around this track before. The squadron moves into what is clearly a public space that's been cleared out. Somewhere Natasha could easily hide in as a spy, except the people she's supposed to be blending into aren't there. Perhaps that was a hint.
Ross goes on to set the scene for us. "Natasha Romanoff is in violation of the Sokovia Accords. She assaulted the King of Wakanda. Make an example out of her." If we had any doubt about who Ross is here for, it's gone now.
So we expect a clash. We expect an epic escape, maybe with a chase scene or a shootout or a good old-fashioned head-bashing. Natasha is going to gather herself, get out there, and show them how it's done. Right?
Natasha calls a phone number. It's not saved as a contact, but it's already pulled up and punched in before she opens the keypad. She was expecting this. She still has control over the situation. One woman against an army, and she might be outnumbered but she's not down for the count.
She dials and Ross picks up the call. Almost definitely an unknown number, and given the circumstances, who else could it possibly be?
Oddly enough, she starts by telling him not to do this. A plea for mercy? That doesn't sound right. Ross plays dumb, but Natasha calls him on his bullshit and then follows it up with an insult. She's not asking for mercy, she's chastising him. Ross admits he fell for the hook, and tries to intimidate her back by explaining how it makes sense. From his vantage point, she needs a deal to get out of this one. Yeah, maybe she can escape the building, but it's gonna cost her energy, possibly unwanted injury, and she's going to give the United Nations more material to use against her in court.
Ross is buying time. Seconds are precious here. He'll talk to her all day if it keeps her in one spot long enough for his soldiers to corner her and cut off all her escape routes.
Natasha jabs at him while filling in the audience about what's happened since the last time she saw her. Ross is tired, and that puts his earlier caution into context. He's been trying to track her down, to capture her, to bring her in.
He hasn't succeeded yet, though not for lack of trying. "What is this, your second triple bypass?" Triple bypass (from my one Google search about it, don't come at me) might refer to a combined effort between local and federal police to track someone, launch surveillance against them, and coordinate an operation to close the fugitive in with no way out. Not a small setup, and this is Ross's second attempt. He's using a lot of resources to nail Natasha down. We aren't given the details of how the first one went except that it didn't work and now Ross is trying again.
Ross changes the subject quickly but still wants her talking (and not moving), so he tells her what has happened to Cap's team since she last saw them. They have (Clint) Barton, (Sam) Wilson, the other guy/the incredible shrinking convict (Scott Lang), (they don't even mention Wanda Maximoff, rude), and they don't have (Steve) Rogers (and Bucky Barnes with him). Keeps trying to intimidate her, says she has no friends.
Meanwhile, Natasha just learned where all her allies are. She knows where Steve and Bucky went, and that's enough information for her to start tracking them down later if/when she decides to pick up the trail. If Ross has all the others, then they're in the Raft. She's harvesting information off of him even now because Ross is stalling for time. He thinks anything that keeps this conversation going will pay off in the end.
He asks here where she's going to go, but Natasha has everything she needs out of Ross and she's done with this conversation. It's time to go. She wraps it up, insinuating that she's not out of places to hide and that this was a waste of his time. Natasha Romanoff is going to disappear, she's done.
Before Ross can ask what that means, she ends the call and leaves him with absolutely no more useful information than he had when the call started. He can only assume she's on the move.
The soldiers are closing in. Natasha hears a noise outside the bathroom and knows somebody is close. She exhales, and the audience leans forward, ready for this dramatic exit. Here we go.
As the soldiers kick the door in, Natasha leaves the bathroom. A different bathroom. There are no soldiers outside her door. Someone picks up her suit in the building Ross has redundantly surrounded, and Natasha slowly and calmly lets herself out onto the deck of a ferry boat.
Ross is nowhere remotely close to his target. He's somewhere in a city, pulling all the stops to surround a public building in broad daylight, and Natasha is somewhere away from the city, surrounded by water and foggy mountains.
An officer confirms that no one was in the building, revealing that the Black Widow's tracker is no longer tracking the Black Widow, just her suit. It's a damn good suit, but it's nothing without the woman who was supposed to be wearing it.
She slips the phone she used to call Ross into the water. He probably didn't have any means of tracking their call from his cell phone, but even if he finds a way to do that, he's going to be led to the bottom of a body of water seemingly thousands of miles away.
The audience is set up to anticipate a display of kickass combat, but that's not how you set up a clean, traceless exit. The closer people are to you, the easier it is for them to follow you. Natasha has to move faster than the people chasing her, and before the camera even started rolling, Natasha moved so fast and so lightly that Ross was only just catching up to her suit. She even had enough time to set up one last monitor and extract another nugget of information out of Ross before disappearing completely. No rush, no tension, no weakness that Ross or the United Nations could see.
We expected a fight. Ross expected a fight. Natasha is smart enough that she won the fight before Ross ever showed up. It's not epic. It doesn't make for a cinematic stunt sequence, but she's not trying to be a superhero. She's not trying to be cool. She's trying to disappear. The audience is just as slow to the point as Ross is.
Ross pulled out all the stops and wound up dragging several armed units to clear a public building only to fall flat on his ass anyway. Natasha pulled out, like... what? Three stops? Maybe? and walked away invisible, without a scratch on her. She even got a cherry on top: a lead to follow if she ever finds a chance to go after Steve and the others to clean up this mess.
