The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)

(Cert 15, 100 mins)

- TJ MCKAY Glenn Close as Joan Castleman in The Wife.

The mercurial Glenn Close makes a compelling bid for her seventh Oscar nomination in the title role of director Bjorn Runge’s slow-burning drama adapted from the novel by Meg Wolitzer.

Oscillatin­g between two time frames, The Wife is a meticulous­ly constructe­d character study, which exposes the steely resolve and indignatio­n of a woman who has honoured her wedding vows to a man with a roving eye and an insatiable hunger for recognitio­n.

“There’s nothing more dangerous than a writer whose feelings have been hurt,” observes Close’s dutiful spouse, a casual aside which resonates with increasing ferocity as the plot unravels and dark secrets are unearthed.

Everything we need to know about the central couple’s marriage seems to be encapsulat­ed in an opening bedroom scene.

Close wearily fends off her husband as he exercises his early morning conjugal rights.

“You don’t have to do anything, just lie there,” he tells her, focused solely on personal gratificat­ion.

The enduring pleasure of Runge’s film is witnessing the balance of power shift between the well-drawn characters, building to a dazzling explosion of verbal fireworks that makes sense of throwaway comments and gestures that have tantalised us until this turning point.

In 1992 Connecticu­t, celebrated writer Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce) receives a telephone call from Stockholm to confirm he has been selected as this year’s recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Joe’s wife Joan (Close) celebrates with her spouse yet there is unspoken tension.

The Castlemans travel to Sweden on Concorde and mid-flight, they are pestered by muck-raking journalist Nathaniel Bone (Christian Slater), who is keen to pen a biography on Joe and hopes that he can get to his unwilling subject via Joan.

Nathaniel slyly repeats toxic tittle tattle about the couple’s relationsh­ip to get a rise from Joan.

While she fends off Nathaniel’s unwelcome overtures, Joan also acts as peacemaker between Joe and their son David (Max Irons), a writer desperate for his father’s approval.

The Wife is draped elegantly around Close and her deeply moving performanc­e.

Pryce portrays a boor with gusto and he sparks fiery on-screen chemistry with Irons as the prodigal son, whose selfbelief can be undermined by a single word of criticism from his old man.

By the incendiary final frames, the younger Castleman discovers that he has been forlornly searching for validation in the wrong place.

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