The Wife

Glenn Close is a tremendous actress. That shouldn’t be news to anyone who’s been even halfway following her career, but if there were still any doubt, her performance in Björn Runge’s “The Wife” erases any remaining room for it. As the supportive yet secretive spouse of an acclaimed writer dealing with some old anxieties in the days before he accepts the Nobel Prize, the veteran actress is a marvel of twisty understatement here, delivering emotions that conceal as much as they reveal, and offering onion-like layers that invite repeat viewings in light of some of the film’s later revelations. The film itself – solid, conventional, and potentially quite attractive to older filmgoers – is very lucky to have her.

Close stars as sixty-something Joan Castleman in this adaptation of Meg Wolitzer’s novel. Set in 1992, we first see Joan in bed with her novelist husband, Joe (Jonathan Pryce), who is scarfing down sweets to compensate for his nervousness on the night before the Nobel honorees are announced. The next morning, the news is exactly what they’d hoped for, and the following days are a blur of celebratory dinners and plans for their upcoming trip to Sweden. Their relationship is well-sketched from the start: Joe the somewhat absent-minded man-of-letters who is all too eager to bask in the glow of recognition, Joan the regally-composed wife who keeps the trains running on time, yet seems less than eager to play the silent smiling spouse as her husband makes toasts in her honor.

There are plenty of such toasts in store for her in Stockholm, and the couple take their adult son David (Max Irons) along for the trip. Sullen, surly, and perpetually staring down the collar of his leather jacket, David has designs on becoming a writer too – while Joan effuses praise for his latest story, Joe is too distracted to sit down with it. The family is trailed by an unwelcome guest in Nathaniel Bone (Christian Slater), a relentlessly insinuating journalist who is dead-set on composing Joe’s biography, whether he participates or not.