Honorable mention for Close in an also-ran
An exceptionally fine performance by Glenn Close as a woman greatly put-upon is the main reason to see “The Wife,” otherwise a heavy recounting of a predictable story calculated to produce outrage. Though it really wouldn’t work, it’s tempting to want to take the editing scissors to much of the movie so that we could simply relish what is Close’s best work in a long time.
The movie’s heart is the slow removal of the bandages from the wounds of Close’s character, Joan, married to a renowned and self-centered novelist, Joe, who learns early in the film that he will receive the Nobel Prize in literature.
Joe (Jonathan Pryce) and Joan travel with their adult son (Max Irons) to Stockholm for the awards ceremony, where subplots unfold and there is a somewhat predictable revelation that is less startling than filmmaker Björn Runge seems to think.
For her, Joe’s winning the Nobel is the final straw — that, and his obvious pursuit of the young female photographer assigned to document his time in Sweden (he’s a serial philanderer, and in fact took up with Joan while he was a married professor and she was a graduate student at Smith College). Naturally, Joan is angry, and she simply loses the will to keep up the charade that’s allowed their marriage to last.
Part of the problem is that Joe is so relentlessly unsympathetic, despite good work from the more-than-capable Pryce. The son, also a writer, is a mess of resentment; he’ll never match his father’s achievements and hasn’t received any emotional support from Joe. The latter seems just as clueless when it comes to Joan, and he’s either denied or rationalized his fraud to the point where he just can’t compute what’s bothering her.
Among subplots that add little to the proceedings is the presence of Joe’s would-be biographer (Christian Slater, not at his best) who won’t take no for an answer, though that’s exactly what he’s gotten from the writer, and more than once. What he’s after is salacious material, and he’s not above sneakily approaching Joan and the son — he’s little more than a stereotypical creep and villain.
In case we miss the point, the film helpfully offers a scene of the young Joan being advised by a heavy-drinking female writer to give up her dreams of authorship, since the literary scene is just another boys’ club and the game is rigged.
This kind of pouring it on is a shame, because it isn’t worthy of what Close achieves here. Her Joan is a stoic by nature, but after decades in Joe’s shadow, she is being rudely awakened. The movie overplays a lot of things, but Close shows great skill in staying credible. When she erupts, it’s at the right moment, and it’s correctly modulated.
It would be wrong to say Close’s performance in “The Wife” is wasted, but it certainly deserves a better movie.