I have two theories about “I’m Your Woman,” Julia Hart’s latest feature and AFI Fest 2020’s opening film. The first: This movie is the photonegative of the classic gritty ’70s thrillers its own aesthetic and mood nod to. The second: This is very much a story about a privileged, willfully blind white woman finally coming to grips with the life she’s chosen for herself — or rather the life she’s let herself be swept up into.

Overall, things are pretty good for ’70s crime housewife Jean (Rachel Brosnahan). Sure, she’s a little bored and sad, and a terrible cook, but she’s in love with her husband, lives in a nice house, and has enough free time to lounge around in a fluffy magenta robe. Things come crashing down when her husband, Eddie (Bill Heck), a professional thief, betrays his partners. Suddenly Eddie is nowhere to be found and Jean and her baby are in danger, and must run for their lives. Although Jean laments being alone for the first time, she isn’t, really: Eddie’s old friends Teri (Marsha Stephanie Blake) and Cal (Arinzé Kene) step up to protect her and her child.

Anyway, back to my theories. The bulk of “I’m Your Woman” sees Jean adapting to her new life in hiding and learning more about her husband’s job — details she previously chose not to be aware of. Meanwhile, offscreen, Eddie is dealing with the fallout of his betrayal and Jean and the audience get periodic updates about his whereabouts and actions. Hence the photonegative comment. If Sidney Lumet and his contemporaries focused on the men and the violence in ’70s cinema, Hart and “I’m Your Woman” are more interested in what happens to the women, the small details, and the quieter realities of a life of crime. (Have you ever wondered what the corrupt cops’ wives of “Serpico” were up to? Apparently Hart and her team have.) Jean doesn’t stop being an overtaxed mom just because she goes on the run, for example. Her story may be less action-packed and bloody than Eddie’s, but it’s worthy of being told.

But don’t confuse the fact that Jean is the protagonist with her being a decent person: she’s more passive than anything. Eddie handles everything until Teri and Cal take over. And while Jean is certainly well meaning, she has a habit of making messes for others to clean up. It’s also worth noting that Teri and Cal are a Black couple expected to drop everything to make sure Jean and her son are taken care of, even if that means endangering their own family. Jean doesn’t question that; although it’s never ham-fisted about it, I believe the movie does.

A surface reading of “I’m Your Woman” would home in on Jean, without her husband’s protection or money, finding and wielding her own power. And that’s definitely part of the film. But its providing a feminine counterweight to the aforementioned gritty movies of the ’70s is what makes it special. Jean’s empowerment is contingent on her husband’s crimes, and the sacrifices of a Black family. Jean as a character is engaging and often sympathetic, and Brosnahan is great as always. Yet the character is no hero: instead, she’s just as complex, narcissistic, and morally flexible as any of the dudes who usually dominate crime movies.

“I’m Your Woman” is now in theaters, and hits Amazon Prime Video December 11. Hart wrote the screenplay with Jordan Horowitz.