The Wife - Review

The Wife

Actress Glenn Close (Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons and Albert Nobbs) and Jonathan Pryce (Ronin) bring their considerable acting prowess to the dramatic film called simply “The Wife”. A rather theatric crafted film in its movement and execution about the life span of a husband and wife team named Joseph and Joan Castleman whose literary writing relationship began years ago with the much younger Joan falling in love with her slightly older charismatic married Professor named Joe.

With the story taking place largely in present day (1992) we do see their whole life  projected and rounded out through a series of flashbacks and key moments through the performances of actor Harry Lloyd as young the Joe and actress Annie Starke as the young Joan and who also is Glenn Close real life daughter. It is this early period that we see both the defining genesis and long term foundation of a unique marriage of over 40 years. A marriage that would be secretly defined by the powerful varying assumptions about what constitutes “talent”. A cinematic examination (if you will) of what “talent” really is from the perspective of critics and fans who tend to look at their idolized subject with an overabundance of casual adoration, adulation and sycophant eyes verses those on the other hand who are more intimately connected to the subject of adulation, offering more critical assessments, with less constrains in their opinions because of deeper emotionally issues at stake that meets the public eye. It’s this very schism that is the central plot to the film’s story in “The Wife”. An emotionally deep and personal analysis of how this intimate divide came suddenly to the surface of a long marriage with a seemingly happy and innocent congratulatory phone call.

It’ in the very early minutes of the film that we do see the phone call come through. Joe is relentless and cannot sleep waiting on the news he has coveted all of his life. And shortly after some wistful playfulness between him and Joan the call does come with Joe finally receiving the great news he has in fact been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. It’s the acclaimed he has long been seeking for what he sees as a lifelong prolific body of work. We see him self-indulgently let the moment wash over him with masculine pride of this accomplishment as we hear the caller heap endless praises on his selection. Similar we also see upon the receiving of this good news Joan listening attentively on the other phone. She is happy but she is also silent.  We see the joy on her face but also we see an expressive facial reflection of this moment as a culmination of work taking 40 years to come to fruition. Through Joan’s faint smile, her emotional dancing eyes this is more than her husband’s moment of international acclaim it is also a potent lifelong personal moment of her own reflections; a slow introspective revisiting if you will; a deep deliberative emotional process of how many countless times she has compromised, kept personal secrets and ignored hurtful betrayals that she has had to endure for this one phone call solely for the benefit of her husband Joe’s “talent”.

REVIEW: “The Wife” as much as it is a solid fictional story about the many personal sacrifices made by women for their marriage to work, it also am acutely metaphoric examination that cuts across centuries, across all human demographics, races and cultures of how many times women have had to uniquely self-imposed degrees of what kind, how much and what gradation of happiness they can live just to singularly appease their husband’s career and successes. Even to the point sometimes when the wife’s contributions to the husband success was not only equally causative and instrumental, it was in some instance contributions that exceeded their husbands.

In the film we the audiences see Joe and Joe sees himself as being the titular head of accomplishment in his home. But Joe’s success shines solely and singularly through a prism of perpetual irascible male vanity. Joan emotions on the other hand are more dexterous as she is seen as more dutiful and gracious, more loving and supportive of Joe. But over time we also see her many painful sacrifices of self-imposed stoicism and a self-effacing veneers she had to wear. And where as Joe is very much enjoying his public role as the great celebrity American novelist, Joan pours her considerable intellect, grace, charm and diplomacy into a very private role and space of human simplicity of always being the smiling wife to ”the great man”.

The Wife” does have some structural problems in its story development. Specifically with the critical going back and forward to their past and present lives scenes. This scenes transitioning while critical to the overall plot felt nonetheless very stilted, stiffed and overly mannered in their impact. There also were some rather over melodramatic, even overly contentious interplay between Joe and his emotionally charged son Max. Joe and Max seemingly fought endlessly throughout the film largely on Max needing favorable affirmation from his father at his attempts at working on his own novel. But minus these two hiccups the overall arc of the film while not a great movie still made for a very compelling story about how some women; actually many women through the ages to contemporary times made their marital relationship survive on the backs of wives intimate willingness for a life of self-deprecation for the benefit of their husbands. Women spending their entire lives waking up and living every single moment in a shadow that was cast over them if not by others a shadow they deliberately cast on themselves. A long-suffering 40 year shadow that can sometimes hit a critical breaking point from a single benign phone call

The performances by both Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce are brilliant, especially  for Glenn Close, who I am 100% certain will garner her seventh nomination as Best Actress. She is both equal parts understated and marvelous, passive and awe-inspiring, exasperating and frustrating and commanding and rich. But what is powerful about her performance is not how we watch her evolve from her almost terminally infused emotional shyness that inhabited her Joan’s to a woman who reclaims her own life and voice.  No, it’s because of the way Close projects her Joan’s growth throughout the film with glances, smiles, frowns, silence and looks of raging anger that says as much as any possible uttered voluminous dialogue and written words she could have conveyed orally.  

I believe Glenn Close could very well finally walk away with that golden statue with her work here. And as a lifelong fan of hers I for one will be thoroughly thrilled to see it happen for her as ‘The Wife”.

3.25 Stars