Like most movies I see, especially this time of year, if a film is up for a major award, I purposefully avoid any reviews or other information about the film. I usually go in knowing only what I might have seen on a preview. And I’m so pleased when a film delivers something particularly interesting. The Wife does that.
The Wife, of which I had’t even seen a preview, proffers a compelling story that slowly unravels over the course of the two hours’ viewing. The first string to pull becomes visible almost immediately when the film begins and we see Glenn Close’s expression. Looking closely, we know that things aren’t what they appear on the surface. But we have to watch Close’s face to see that. And it is in these varying expressions that we learn the depth of the effect of this couple’s story as we learn what’s behind the curtain.
Glenn Close’s performance is what drew me to watch this film. She has received two of the big awards so far (Best Actress for both Golden Globe and SAG) and is a favorite for the Oscar. She’s deserved every accolade. Her expressions, reactions, quiet obvious internalizations – these all make this film, taking it from average story to stellar (albeit still quiet) portrayal.
As for the film itself, it’s good, but some of the narrative sludges through. Yet the film’s refusal to give in to satisfying outcomes especially impressed me; at the same time, I felt as cheated as many of the characters must have over the course of it all; I didn’t get a final satisfaction of the direction things took. Thus I liked too that in the end, we don’t necessarily have all of the answers of “what happens” that we might think we seek.
I should stop here and acknowledge this movie’s relation in the overall 2018 Oscar scene. See, I watched this a day after seeing A Star is Born. The comparison in underlying stories is impossible not to make while also impossible to be fair to. The marriages contrast in time, development, and problems. Yet the problems butt against each other eerily. Talent. Competition. Ego. Vanity. Despair. These are parts of both stories in ways too akin. The outcome too is a bit too parallel even if those matching rails are far apart.
Added Note: I adore that we have a film to showcase Glenn Close in 2019. Their characters’ story is one based on a life built with decades together. The issues that come to that decades-long marriage are utterly unlike those that could be present in A Star is Born. To have a quality movie with such a role with that sort of depth, acknowledging and embracing the age of the primary characters, is simply fabulous.