REVIEW
The Wife
Stars: 4.5
Starring Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce, Christian Slater, Max Irons, Harry Lloyd, Annie Starke, Elizabeth McGovern and Alix Wilton Regan
Written by Jane Anderson
Directed by Björn Runge
Rated: PG for coarse language and sexual content
Runtime: 100 minutes
Now playing at Landmark Cinemas (Edmonton City Centre)
Is it just that I’m getting older or do I immediately find older actors immensely more watchable, more expressive, more interesting than their younger counterparts most of the time?
Truthfully, it’s not just me: many older actors are seasoned veterans and simply know what they’re doing. They know how to be expressive of face. They understand nuance of body language. They can offer a knowing inflection in their voices.
An excellent case in point is The Wife, director Björn Runge’s adaptation of the novel by Meg Wolitzer. The story itself might use the awarding of a Nobel Prize for Literature to celebrated writer Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce) as the catalyst during the opening minutes but this is not a story that celebrates this guy. His wife, Joan Castleman (the incomparable Glenn Close) is our hero.
Upon the news of Castleman’s grand prize, Joan finds herself re-evaluating many things in her life. This comes through a series of flashbacks to when she was a writer herself as well as his mistress during his first marriage. They serve as counterpoints to current situations where she discovers that Joe has become flirtatious with the Nobel committee’s young female photographer.
Like America’s silver-haired version of Judi Dench, Close is austere and reserved yet you can sense the passion simmering under the surface. She has deserved an Oscar a million times and always been denied. OK, it’s really only six times that she has been nominated but there are numerous films where she has proven her mettle with strong characters and strong performances such as Albert Nobbs, Dangerous Liaisons, The World According to Garp, Reversal of Fortune, The Paper ... I could go on. Even in 101 Dalmatians, the pre-eminent Disney live action remake of a cartoon classic, she was brilliant, perfect, memorable. A revelation. Those are all the qualities that warrant an Academy Award for Best Actress. If she doesn’t win such a prize for this film, I pledge to stage a one-man strike against Hollywood.
But back to the film.
The Wife premiered a full year ago at the Toronto International Film Festival but I couldn’t imagine a better time for this time to reach the public at large. The character of Joe Castleman is a right bastard: a blowhard, selfish, overbearing jerk who is doting on the daughter, standoffish toward the son and more than a bit bossy towards his wife. Maybe he does deserve his Nobel. Probably. But that doesn’t make him a prince.
Pryce is perfect in his role, too. Joe is only satisfied being the star of everything, even his family. If Joan could have been a great writer early on in their relationship, it would have destroyed his career. He gets what he wants, when he wants it.
Again, this is Close’s film. There are secondary female characters – the daughter, the Nobel photographer, even the younger Joan during the flashbacks – but otherwise this film is populated with men. She carries the full emotional weight of the plot as, dare I say, the long-suffering wife of a bestselling author. She’s the one who gave it all up to support him and have his children. He even says that he would be nothing without her. What he doesn’t say is what she had to endure so that he could achieve.
This is the age of #MeToo, Cosby going to jail, and that Supreme Court mess in the United States where Christine Blasey Ford proved herself a hero in a big room beset with men in power. That’s just one of the many reasons this film is a resonant masterpiece about who champions really are. I’m a writer, too, but I left this film saying that no Nobel Prize in Literature is worth the trouble he puts his family through.
