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THE WIFE Swedish director Björn Runge gives Glenn Close a shot at Oscar…
Even since Björn Runge’s elegant drama The Wife debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival almost a year ago, the talk has been that this is Glenn Close’s big chance to bag herself an Oscar. The American star has been nominated six times for an Academy Award – including three consecutive years between 1982 and 1984 – and never won. But reviews for this adaptation of Meg Wolitzer’s novel have been stellar.
With the film’s release held back, it meant Close skipped the 2018 Oscar race that saw Frances McDormand in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri crushing all-comers. Now it’s the turn of The Wife to be a frontrunner. “When we were in the States, I could feel it was a good energy around the film at every screening,” says Runge, the 57-year-old playwright and filmmaker.
Despite his body of work, the Swede still had to ‘audition’ for Close, who had already been attached for a year. “I flew over to New York and ate breakfast with Glenn at a café close to her home. We were speaking about the script and theatre and the film industry. Suddenly she went silent and she looked at me and said, ‘I want you to direct this film.’ So that was her way to cast me.”
In the film, British star Jonathan Pryce plays Joe Castleman, an acclaimed author about to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. But as he travels to Stockholm for the ceremony, all is not well. While Joe endures a troubled relationship with his grown-up son David (Max Irons), he’s also perpetually unfaithful to his spouse Joan (Close), who herself has a whopper of a skeleton in the closet. “We are coming in when the secret has come to an end for this family,” hints Runge.
While The Wife is what Runge calls a “perfect combination of Scandinavian and classical American drama”, influenced as much by dramatists such as Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg as Stateside playwrights such as Arthur Miller, it took on a more topical resonance after its premiere, when news broke about Harvey Weinstein’s sex scandals that, ultimately, led to the #MeToo movement.
“There are elements in Joseph Castleman’s behaviour that are touching on the #MeToo movement,” admits Runge. “At one point, I was thinking. ‘What will that movement do to our film?’ It’s about female empowerment, the film. So I think it’s very good timing.” With all this in mind, does he think Close is in with a chance for her first Oscar? “I don’t know what will happen,” he shrugs, “but the energy that Glenn and Jonathan give to the audience…
I hope that will come back to them.”
ETA | 28 SEPTEMBER / THE WIFE OPENS NEXT MONTH.