The Wife

     Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce star in this serious domestic drama. They play Joe and Joan Castleman, he, a successful writer traveling to Stockholm to receive the Nobel prize in Literature and she, his wife of many years, who has lived in the shadow of his success. The film is a master class in acting from both leads but it is truly a tour de force from Ms. Close. It is a crowning achievement in an illustrious career.  

      Flashbacks reveal how the couple met and eventually married. The young Joan is played by Annie Starke (Ms. Close real life daughter) and Joe is played by Harry Lloyd. They capture the nuances of their older selves perfectly. The film also co-stars Christian Slater as an ambitious writer mildly obsessed with the Castleman's and Max Irons and Alix Wilton Regan as their adult children.

      It is a powerful story of a marriage gone asunder when the cracks of Joan's repressed feelings rise to the surface and things begin to unravel during their time in Stockholm. Ms. Close and Mr. Pryce verbally spar on the order of a delicate fencing match and it is a pleasure to watch them as they disappear into these fascinating characters. I would think Ms. Close is a lock for an Oscar nomination, very possibly Mr. Pryce as well.