DVD Review - The Wife

This film was nominated for one Academy Award, Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. The nomination went to Glenn Close who has been nominated six times before but who has never won. Her first nomination was 36 years ago. Given that she won the Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild Award for this same performance this year, the likelihood that she will won the Oscar is very, very high. I overlooked the film when it was released in theaters last year, but all the awards attention necessitates a consideration.

Close stars as Joan Castleman, the wife of a famous author named Joe Castleman, played by Jonathan Pryce (Game of Thrones and Brazil). They're in their 50's or 60's now. They have two adult children. One night, they're awoken to learn by phone that Joe has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The film follows, the two, along with their son, David, played by Max Irons (Woman in Gold and The Host), as they travel to Stockholm, Sweden, to receive the award and participate in the dinner.

Adapted from a novel by Meg Wolitzer, written by Emmy-winner Jane Anderson (Olive Kitteridge), the film is set in 1992, but flashbacks to 30 years prior to reveal that Joan and Joe met in college where Joe was Joan's married professor. Swedish director, Björn Runge depicts those flashback scenes with two, very good, younger actors. Through it, we get a frustrated man who becomes even more frustrated when it's clear, his future wife is a better writer than him.

What's great about Close's performance is the quiet frustration that she exudes in scene-after-scene. It's not apparent in the beginning of the film. She seems genuinely happy for her husband and by his side to be as supportive as possible. As the film goes along though, one wonders if hers is just a silent jealousy. By the end, it's such that her feelings are a kind of mirror or refraction of what her son is experiencing.

David is an aspiring writer too. Yet, he lives in the shadow of his father, always seeking his approval. The toll of not getting that approval weighs heavily on David and it's clear through Irons' performance of that toll. Close's performance is more restrained than that, more nuanced and internal. She's affected by not getting Joe's approval as well, but she holds it in until the very end of the film when it explodes.

The film stays mostly in the present, focusing on what a biographer named Nathaniel Bone, played by Christian Slater (Mr. Robot and True Romance) discovers. Nathaniel in fact uncovers secrets in Joan and Joe's relationship. Focusing on the present isn't a bad instinct, given that it provides more screen time for Close who is superb here, but the more interesting exploration is in the past with Joan as a young woman, played by Annie Starke, the real-life daughter of Glenn Close.

At one point, Joe as an old man asks Joan why she married him decades ago. She can't answer or rather she says she doesn't know. There's also another question of why Joan didn't pursue her passion for her whole life and why she allowed Joe to take all the credit or be a success on her behalf. The simple answer could simply be that Joan was born in a different time where sexism and misogyny were more the norm and more accepted. Women being subservient to men was just how things went, but spending time with Joan as a young woman and seeing her butt up against that sexism in real time would have helped to understand her character more.

Close and Pryce have such amazing chemistry that whatever quibble about the strength of the narrative is overlooked because of Close and Pryce's acting. It makes sense that this film is only recognized for its acting, as the film doesn't stand out in any other fashion.

In fact, a better film that also portrays similar subject matter is Colette (2018), starring Keira Knightley. Despite being about a French woman, Colette could have been that version of young Joan that I would have preferred to see. Again though, it's hard to complain about seeing Close shine here in this role.

Rated R for language and some sexual content.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 40 mins.