The Widow

Simon Latch is disillusioned after 18 years as a small-town lawyer in the small town of Braxton, Virginia, specializing primarily in bankruptcies and simple wills. His marriage to Paula is on the brink of collapse, and he is financially tapped out.

One afternoon, he meets Eleanor “Netty” Barnett, an 85-year-old new client, who has no family besides two estranged stepsons, the children of her late husband, Harry Korsak. Netty tells Simon that Harry secretly accumulated more than $16 million in stock and nearly $4 million in cash. She shows him her current will, prepared by local attorney Wally Thackerman, which leaves everything to a trust Wally controls for unspecified charities.

Simon recognizes the will is self-serving and unethical. Seeing an opportunity, he schedules a follow-up at Starbucks and begins isolating Netty from his staff. He lies to Netty that his longtime secretary, Matilda Clark, gossips as a ruse to exclude Matilda from future meetings. He then lies to Matilda that Netty may be psychologically unstable, laying the groundwork to handle her case privately.