Review 474: The Wife

Based on the novel The Wife by Meg Wolitzer, Joan Castleman (Glenn Close) has spent forty years sacrificing her dreams to support her charismatic albeit narcissistic husband Joe (Jonathan Pryce) and "his" literacy career. After a lifetime of uneven compromises, Joan and Joe's marriage has reached the  moment of truth. On the eve of Joe's Nobel Prize for Literature, Joan confronts the biggest sacrifice of her life and some long-buried secrets.

The fact that Joe has won the noble prize should be a cause for celebration but instead it becomes an opportunity for Joan to confront some truths she's bottled up for so long.

What stated out (as brilliantly told in well paced flashbacks) as a simple teacher/student relationship soon turned into
As the film goes on, the strain of their relationship causes them to crack. The tension between Joan and John starts to notch up.

A character study in marriage.

Director Bjorn Runge's direction is the cinematography is fantastic and captures the the score by Jocelyn Pook is beautifully lush, the production design is terrific, the costumes are superb.

Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce are stellar in this film. You have two great actors who are absolutely giving it their all and brilliantly conveying how their contrasting personalities clash.
Whilst Pryce's Joe remains in his narcissism and neediness, Close's Joan undergoes a subtly powerful character transformation from a steadfast wife who takes care of her husband to coming into her own as a formidable force of nature. Joan eventually gives voice to all she's seen and done and unleashes secrets she's held for too long. Only when she does that, can she finally allow herself to come into her own as a woman.

Christian Slater also as Nathaniel Bone, a sly biography with a taste for scandal