Starring: Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce, Annie Starke, Elizabeth McGovern, and Christian Slater
Distributor: Icon Films
Runtime: 100 mins. Reviewed in Aug 2018
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This Swedish-British-American drama is based on the novel of the same name written by Meg Wolitzer in 2004. It tells the story of a wife who questions her life as she travels to Stockholm with her husband, a New York novelist, who has been chosen to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Glenn Close plays Joan Castleman, a highly intelligent woman and a dedicated wife. For a long time, she has sacrificed her personal dreams of being a writer for the sake of the literary ambitions of her talented, but conceited husband, Joe (Jonathan Pryce). Joe is addicted to praise. His marriage has involved multiple sacrifices on Joan’s part, but she has reached breaking point. Joan makes the decision to leave her husband shortly after he receives the Nobel Prize for a book that crowns his illustrious literary career.
On a plane to Sweden with family to collect the prize, an investigative journalist, Nathaniel Bone (Christian Slater) starts to rake the smouldering flames of Joan’s resentment. The film delivers especially good acting by Glen Close and Jonathan Price. It uses multiple flashbacks to highlight the relevance of the lives they have forged together, and a younger Joan is played by Close’s real-life daughter, Annie Starke.
Scenes show us a youthful Joan, her frustration as a would-be writer, her husband’s growing conceit, and Joe’s nervousness before the Nobel honourees are announced. When the phone rings from Norway informing Joe that he has won the Nobel Prize, Joe and Joan process the news differently. Joe takes the news arrogantly, while Joan knows she is expected to be even more tolerant of Joe’s entrenched habit of subtly victimising her. The tension increases as the Nobel Prize ceremony draws closer. On the way to Joe’s crowning achievement, and at the award ceremony itself, Joe treats Joan publicly as his long-suffering wife.
Jonathan Pryce as Joe, and especially Glenn Close as Joan, brilliantly capture two people, married to each other, who are travelling in very different psychological directions. Joan has learnt to ignore her husband’s infidelities for the sake of his art, and Joe uses the term “the wife” (signalling the significance of the film’s title) to refer to Joan as someone who can’t ever be expected to match the stellar levels of his own writing. Joan is sick of being absorbed into her husband’s conceit. Both of them communicate the fragility of a relationship at a time that is all-important to just one of them, and the triumph for Joe becomes a late mid-life crisis for Joan. Elizabeth McGovern has a cameo role as an embittered author, who advises Joan to give up her early ambitions to be a female writer. She tells her they can never be fulfilled in a male world.
Scripting for the film is excellent, its editing is tight, and the direction of the film by Bjorn Runge is measured and assured. But, in this movie it is the quality of the acting that stands out. Both Close and Pryce act emotions that conceal as much as they reveal. Close, in particular, gives a penetrating portrayal of a woman, who is sidelined for male glory. She conveys her strength by cloaking her disquiet with the appearance of acceptance. She has learnt to look supportive, while being deeply hurt. Close gives a compelling performance of a woman simmering with self-control, and she captures precisely the politics of artistic ambition. Her acting in this movie eclipses the excellent performance she gave as the female stalker, Alex, in “Fatal Attraction” (1987).
This is an engrossing movie that provocatively addresses the issue of women who choose to define themselves through the men in their lives. Plot-wise, there is a surprising finish, relating to a secret that Joan has long held, and which has a dramatic consequence for Joe.
The film tackles a wide range of issues: gender inequality, the cult of artistic personalities, marital conflict, and literary sexism. But Glenn Close is the film’s star turn – she is amazingly good.
Peter W. Sheehan is Associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting
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