Acting adds luster to ‘Woman in Gold’
“Woman in Gold” is blessed to have a woman with gold as its leading lady.
Helen Mirren, an Oscar winner for “The Queen,” portrays Maria Altmann, an octogenarian widow and California dress shop owner who suggests in 1998 that the busy son of a friend help her with a problem. He could do it on the side, “like a hobby.”
Little did she realize the size, scope and worldwide implications of her proposal. It was about righting a wrong that could be corrected — unlike the heinous crimes that destroyed her Jewish family, killed her friends and forced her to flee from her native Vienna.
She wanted the rightful return of Gustav Klimt’s masterpiece, “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer,” known as the “Lady in Gold” and considered the “Mona Lisa of Austria.” Mr. Klimt’s most famous painting, glistening with gold leaf and measuring a commanding 5 feet by 5 feet, was a portrait of her dear aunt who died suddenly of meningitis in 1925.
It, four other Klimts and many other treasures were stolen from Maria’s family by the Nazis and later landed in an Austrian art gallery. The death of Maria’s sister and discovery of some legal papers among her belongings prompted the request to her friend’s son, a young lawyer, E. Randol “Randy” Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds).
“I have to do what I can to keep these memories alive because people forget, you see, especially the young,” she says.
The timing could not be worse for Randy, juggling a new job and expanding family but he joins forces with Maria in a battle based in fact. It’s an underdog story where the stakes are historic and profound and rooted in the Austrian heritage of client and attorney, the latter the grandson of Austrian composers Arnold Schoenberg and Eric Zeisl.
The film’s power is in the understated acting of its stars, led by Ms. Mirren with darkened hair and eyes and an air of polite but quiet determination and hidden vulnerability. There is but a single f-word and profane exclamation in the PG-13 movie; given the Nazi crimes and Austrian obstinacy, you might expect stiffer language.
Mr. Reynolds’ Randy is a dogged but deferential lawyer whose professional shell is finally pierced one day in Vienna, but he buckles briefly in private. Similar restraint comes from Daniel Bruhl as an Austrian investigative reporter although his role is underwritten, as is Katie Holmes’ as Randy’s wife.
Simon Curtis (“My Week With Marilyn”) initially heard this story in a BBC documentary, “Stealing Klimt,” and directs playwright Alexi Kaye Campbell’s first screenplay. He weaves Maria’s life as a child and then blissful bride with the Nazi annexation of Austria, flight to America and tranquil life as a widow in Los Angeles.
In a possible effort to streamline the story, some threads are dropped or ignored, as with Maria’s opera-singer husband and their children. Maria ultimately had three sons and a daughter, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
The portrait of the society beauty may have been worth millions, but it serves as a priceless reminder of a cultured world torn asunder by hate and hellish war. It also proves that, sometimes, persistence pays off and justice delayed is still justice.