Glenn has a secret.
Watching The Wife last week, my mind couldn’t help but go back to the 2014 drama Still Alice. Both that film and The Wife shared the theme of a woman at a defining crossroads of her life and explored her emotional reaction in the face of significant change. Unfortunately, like Still Alice, The Wife suffers from a sometimes workman-like approach in telling its story, occasionally missing some key emotional beats in favor of going through the motions. Still Alice was saved (just barely) because of the accomplished actress at its center and the heartbreaking work she brought to the project. Thanks to Glenn Close, The Wife carries with it the same secret weapon; a performance just as dynamic and captivating as anything the actress has done in the last few years.
Base don the Meg Woltzier novel, The Wife opens with the news that celebrated author Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce) is receiving the Nobel Prize for literature after a long reign as one of America’s great novelists. No one is happier for him than his devoted, longtime wife Joan (Close), the woman who has been by Joe’s side since they first met when she was a young college student in his English class. As the two travel to Stockholm to attend the ceremony, Joan finds herself having to deal with their resentful son David (Max Irons), her husband’s persistent biographer (Christian Slater) and the haunting nature of the couple’s past.
I should make it clear that there is fundamentally nothing wrong with The Wife as a film. This is a perfectly fine and serviceable little drama that cares about the story it’s telling and the people on the screen. When I say “little,” I don’t mean it as a form of condescension, but actually as a compliment. There’s an intimacy to The Wife which makes it feel so delicate and accessible in the face of such grandiose elements and emotions. Yet The Wife never fully escapes its clunky TV movie moments, most of which take place in the past. In a series of flashbacks we learn about Joan and Joe’s beginnings; how they came to meet, what drew them to each other and ultimately, what’s kept them together. Despite the incredibly solid work of both Annie Starke and Harry Lloyd as Close and Price’s younger counterparts, there’s something a little too simplified (and stylized) about the way this part of The Wife’s story is handled; almost as if those behind the scenes are trying too hard to romanticize the past a la Hallmark Channel while still holding onto conflicts worthy of a Sony Pictures Classics drama.
***Spoilers Ahead***
It isn’t until the final act of The Wife where the narrative really comes alive. Up until then, the film is considered to be a simple, yet involving portrait of a someone who gave her life to her family, and in particular, her husband. When it becomes revealed that it’s really Joan who has been secretly writing the prose to Joe’s stories throughout the years, the film plunges into fresh terrain, becoming a complex portrait of a marriage where two people have heavily compromised who they are. In the final onscreen exchange between the couple we bear witness to all the resentment, guilt and pain Joe and Joan have BOTH held onto and how it shaped the crux of their marriage for decades. The common thread between Joe and Joan is that both chose to have their voices stifled, in a sense. Joan had to endure years of watching everyone compliment her husband for supposedly brilliant literary mind, while Joe spent the bulk of his professional life with the realization that he never actually accomplished a thing. It’s here where The Wife truly becomes a document about the choices made in youth and their everlasting haunting power.
***End of Spoilers***
The Wife gives Close the kind of role she does best. No other actress is capable of unleashing a flood of emotions while remaining elegantly contained. Even in her most silent of moments, the actress manages to show Joan’s struggle to believe in the life she’s made with Joe, even though the secrets she carries are eating her up inside. When she finally lets loose her true feelings, she does so in explosive ways which somehow avoid coming off as theatrical. It’s a quintessential Glenn Close performance and without question, one of her best. She’s more than well-matched by Pryce who gives possibly the best turn of his career as a man at the precipice of a life he himself no longer recognizes. Few actors can match such a powerful scene partner, but Pryce is so invested in Joe’s narcissism and torment, that it carries him to a caliber of work almost as noteworthy as that of his leading lady. Offering more than able support are a properly brooding Irons, a slick Slater and a marvelous cameo from Elizabeth McGovern as a flashy author.
There has been plenty of talk on the part of awards pundits as to whether or not Close’s work in The Wife will be enough to carry her all the way to Oscar glory. After 6 nominations, the actress is certainly due acknowledgment by the Academy, especially after not awarding her the honor for Dangerous Liaisons back in 1989 (by far her finest screen performance to date). There’s enough reason to believe the talk is justified. Joan is the perfect role for Close at this stage in her career, and she knows it; relishing every scene she’s in and unveiling the essence of it right before our eyes. The actress has been quietly making the rounds at film festivals and collecting career tributes in a fashion which similarly led to her last Oscar nod back in 2012 for Albert Nobbs. While that film boasted better chances (I feel) to earning Close the gold, one shouldn’t count out this undeniably strong effort, which may in fact end up being her Still Alice. Even if it isn’t, Close’s work and the film’s existence both remain triumphs as testaments to quiet story-driven filmmaking rooted in the intricacies of life and the incredible work that can come from it.
