Butler's Cinema Scene

Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce

“THE WIFE” My rating: B 

100 minutes | MPAA rating: R

By the time “The Wife” delivers its big reveal, it should come as no surprise.  The film has been telegraphing its intentions all along; only the most inattentive viewer will be taken aback.

Happily, plot is one of the least important elements in Bjorn Runge’s film (adapted by Jane Anderson from Meg Wolitzer’s novel). What we’ve got here are some terrific acting and a portrait of a marriage in which both partners have struck a deal with the devil to ensure their continued success.

We first meet novelist Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce) and his wife Joan (Glenn Close) in the dead of night. Joe can’t sleep, knowing he’s a finalist for the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Joan finally submits to septuagenarian sex to calm him down.

When in the early a.m. the phone call from Stockholm comes, the two celebrate by jumping up and down on their marriage bed like a couple of preschoolers.

But there are signs that not all is well in the Castleman household.  Joe, we learn, is an inveterate philanderer.  And while their pregnant daughter Susannah (Alix Wilton Regan) seems well-adjusted, their son David (Max Irons) is a slow-boiling cauldron of resentment and hurt, not the least because he is an aspiring writer and desperately wants the approval of his famous father…approval which Joe won’t give.

The scene quickly shifts to Stockholm and the swirl of Nobel Week.  Joe attempts to take all the attention in stride, while Joan looks on. In fact, all this hubbub  — and Joe’s obvious infatuation with the pretty young photographer (Morgane Polanski) assigned to record his visit for posterity — is rubbing Joan the wrong way.

Her mood isn’t improved by Nathanial (Christian Slater, in one of his best performances), a sort of literary leech who wants to write Joe’s authorized biography.  Equal parts charm and smarm, Nathanial spends an afternoon drinking with Joan and suggesting that perhaps she’s the one who should be getting the Nobel.

Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce

Indeed, throughout “The Wife” we get flashbacks to Joe and Joan’s early days (they’re played as young adults by Harry Lloyd and Annie Starke…who is Glenn Close’s real-life daughter). We see how Joan, then a student at Smith College, fell for Joe, who abandoned his wife and young daughter to be with her.

We’ve also seen how over time the creative dynamic in the marriage has shifted away from Joe and toward Joan, who has the real writing talent.

It all comes to a head on the night of the awards ceremony.  After 40-some years Joan is tired of hiding her light under a bushel.

What’s really fascinating about “The Wife” is the way in which the characters’ behavior in the early scenes is illuminated and explained by the knowledge we possess at movie’s end.  Joan’s steely inner core, Joe’s shameful behavior, even David’s self-pity, suddenly make sense.

The performances are terrific.  Close has so much depth as an actress that she can telegraph Joan’s inner turmoil simply through a raised eyebrow or a pursed lip.  Pryce nails it as a man who knows he’s a fraud but cannot give up the perks of fame.

Elizabeth McGovern is quite good in one of the flashbacks as a female novelist whose experiences  convince young Joan that a woman writer hasn’t got a chance in this man’s world.

Though it’s set in the early 1990s, “The Wife” seems eerily appropriate in this day and age. It is an overtly feminist film that quietly excoriates a male-dominated society that automatically relegates female voices and experiences to the back of the line.  That’s a fight that is far from over.

|Robert W. Butler