The Wife - Dir: Björn Runge
After watching the first 30 minutes of this film I regretted having seen the trailer beforehand, I felt the plot had been revealed and wondered what there was left to see. How wrong I was.
Glenn Close (The World According to Garp, The Big Chill) plays Joan Castleman, the wife in question to Joe Castleman played by Jonathan Price, who is the proud recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
The film opens with Joe receiving a phone call from Sweden, a call he has hoped for. His prolific body of work awarded with the highest accolade known to man. But it’s not a man who has created the work, it is instead his wife; the ghostwriter and kingmaker, making sure he takes his pills, goes to bed early, removing breadcrumbs from her celebrated husband's greying beard.
Men have been granted the ease of access to success, through generations of gender privilege. We have been given opportunities that women have not, support from institutions, governments, workplaces and society that woman have not. For this reason, Joan Castleman decided not to publish her writing under her own name, the fear of her work being shelved and not read. The same fate as many women before her. So instead she wrote under her husband's name, a veil in under which to hide and a vessel in which to publish.
Whilst this film is a dramatised piece, it perfectly reflects societies flaws. It begs the question; which voices are masked through societies prejudicial filter? What this film does best is to raise questions and intrigue. What else is out there and where is it coming from?
An excellent screenplay by Jane Anderson, adapted from Meg Wolitzer’s novel, calls for an excellent cast to portray the characters and it has just that. Although the film was premiered at Toronto International Film Festival in 2017 and subsequently acquired for distribution, it’s late 2018 release points to giving Glenn Close a better chance for a 7th Oscar nomination. Close is undeniably brilliant, her ability to convey conflicting emotions in a single stare gave me goosebumps. My immediate reaction is that I haven’t seen enough of her work and I must rectify that immediately! With strong support from Jonathan Pryce and Annie Starke (Joan’s young self and Close’s real-life daughter), Björn Runge has created a traditionally well-acted film with a strong message.
8/10