While Claudia Piñeiro’s Thursday’s Widows, sets itself up as a mystery thriller when one of the affluent wives, Teresa, discovers the death of her husband along with his two friends floating dead in their pool, the story unfolds to be a social commentary about how even the most “untouchable” communities are strictly dependant on the economic system that brought them up in the first place. In this case, the “tragedy” the characters were subjected to was the failure of neoliberal capitalism in Argentina. There is almost a sense of apathy for the deaths of these prominent men because as Tano put it, their success or “well-being was based on the ill-being of others.” The scenes where the camera pans up to reveal a ghetto right behind the walls and where Ronnie is watching the news of protests and crowds fighting for rations, juxtaposes the opulent and nonchalant lives of the wealthy, but also foreshadows their inevitable downfall.

Although the rich do segregate themselves from the rest of society, they are not immune to violence especially when the men start losing their jobs and prominence. Consumption is a facade of their class status and signals the idealistic lifestyle that neoliberalism purports. However, the facade that it’s normal for people to have power over and exploit others can quickly turn to depression, domestic abuse, and ultimately suicide on an individual scale because it’s clearly unsustainable in terms of economic growth and improving standards of living for all. While detective fiction stories usually restore some sense of order when the crime has been solved, Argentina in the early 21st century is still far from it. Additionally, the act of the men committing suicide was also a crime because they committed insurance fraud by framing their death as an accident. It can be interpreted that justice has been restored because their death symbolizes the failure of neoliberalism, but given the aforementioned context of the purpose of their death and the prevailing conflict in Argentinian society, it is unclear whether the story ends on a hopeful note.