Movie Review: The Wife

The Wife **** / *****

Directed by: Björn Runge.

Written by: Jane Anderson based on the novel by Meg Wolitzer.

Starring: Glenn Close (Joan Castleman), Jonathan Pryce (Joe Castleman), Christian Slater (Nathaniel Bone), Max Irons (David Castleman), Elizabeth McGovern (Elaine Mozell), Harry Lloyd (Young Joe Castleman), Morgane Polanski (Lorraine), Alix Wilton Regan (Susannah Castleman), Karin Franz Körlof (Linnea), Annie Starke (Young Joan Castleman), Grainne Keenan (Carol Castleman). 

 

It’s frankly reductive and a little insulting to describe every new feminist movie as a #MeToo story – especially one like The Wife, which is based on a novel written in 2003 and a film that was completed and screened at TIFF in September of 2017, before the Harvey Weinstein story even broke. Still, I do think it’s impossible to watch The Wife now, and not think of it – not think of the ways that as a society we make excuses for male genius, and dismiss the people in the background of that person’s life. The Wife is the story of a celebrated novelist – Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce), who in 1993 is told he has won the Nobel Prize in literature – and focused on that trip to Sweden to receive that prize. But, as the title implies, it’s really about his wife – Joan (Glenn Close), who has stuck by him for decades, through all the successes, and all the affairs, and everything else – and has mostly stayed silent in the background. This is the trip where that will change.

 

When the film opens, it presents the relationship between Joe and Joan along the same lines as many long term relationships – they may have had a rocky road at times, but now, it’s all smooth. They love each other and care for each other – although Joan does a lot more of the caring, always noticing when Joe needs something, and gets it for him before he knows he needs it. This is not a modern marriage, but an old school one – with the gregarious man holding court in center stage, as his wife takes care of all the details offstage. Pryce and Close are great in these early scenes in an understated way – which is a particularly nice change of pace for Close, who usually likes to go bigger with her acting choices, but shows just how adept she can be underplaying things as well.

 

Yet, we start to sense a tension in those scenes as well – a party celebrating the Nobel win for example, where something is not quite right, and especially on the flight over when Nathaniel Bone (Christian Slater) approaches the couple. Bone has been trying to get Joe’s permission for years to write his authorized biography, and is constantly being rebuffed. But perhaps he knows more than he’s letting on – and not just about the affairs, which particularly for this generation, was accepted – almost expected – in their male geniuses. We get some flashbacks to the late 1950s and early 1960s, when Joan is a promising writing student, and Joe her charismatic teacher, already with a wife and baby at home. Those flashbacks will eventually let us in on the secrets only husband and wife know – that will, of course, come out in dramatic fashion on this trip to Sweden.

 

The direction here is by Bjorn Runge, who basically just sits back and lets Close and Pryce do their thing in front of the camera. There is not a lot of style here, which either shows restraint or a lack of imagination on Runge’s part – I’ll let you decide. The plot mechanics of the movie are also a little creaky and clichéd – everything, of course, is set to come out at dramatic times over this trip, the relationship between the parents and their adult son, David (Max Irons) doesn’t add much, and Slater’s Bone is basically here to goose the story along instead of for any more natural reason.

 

And yet, it all works because of Pryce, and especially Close. Pryce is one of those actors who has been so good for so long, in so many different projects, you just take him for granted that he will be good. His role here isn’t that far away for his work in Alex Ross Perry’s Listen Up Philip, where he was essentially playing Philip Roth, although Castleman is not quite the narcissist (or misanthrope) his character there was. Still, he has an ego, and he needs it to be stroked – and can get ugly if it isn’t. Close doesn’t work as often as she probably should (part of this is undoubtedly Hollywood sexism/ageism – and the fact that the few roles in films that get made that Close would be great in all go to Meryl Streep), but she is great here. It is an understated performance for much of the its runtime – the tension simmering beneath the surface, where Close tells much with just a knowing look in the eyes, a sly grin or withering stare. She will get her big moments – late in the film – and as expected, she kills them, but I’m more impressed with what leads up to those big moments than the moments themselves.

 

In many ways, The Wife feels like a throwback – to a time in the 1990s, when movies like this were more commonplace – where it wasn’t uncommon to see an intelligent movie like this, with two great performances, aimed at an older adult audience come out in theaters. And yet, The Wife is also a movie that feels timely in other ways as well. It’s part of what makes The Wife hit so hard when it does.