Her award-worthy performance in The Wife might finally win 71-year-old Glenn Close a much-deserved Oscar.
Close has been nominated six times previously for outstanding work, but this role, critics agree, should garner her the Academy Award. Her portrayal of the devoted but long-suffering wife of a literary genius has been called “a masterclass in screen acting,” and one of the finest performances of her career.
Close is Joan Castleman, wife in servitude to self-absorbed, philandering Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce), an acclaimed writer who has just won the Nobel Prize for literature. They head to Stockholm for the ceremony, accompanied by their writer son, desperate for his father’s approval, and Nathaniel Bone (Christian Slater), a smarmy reporter determined to write Joe’s tell-all biography.
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The Nobel win unleashes in Joan inescapable realizations about their marriage. In flashbacks, often prompted by the reporter’s probing, Joan relives memories of their 30-plus year union. (Young Joan is played by Close’s talented real-life look-alike daughter Annie Starke.) Joe and Joan meet at college where he is a creative-writing professor who falls for Joan, his ultra-talented student, and leaves his wife and child for her. It is the 1960s and, of course, Joan is expected to sublimate her literary aspirations to serve his. And yet, as she has lived in his shadow and felt completely undervalued, unbeknownst to anyone, it is her “editing” of his writing over the years that has made his work Nobel-worthy.
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Joan wrestles with the long-held resentments and betrayals bubbling beneath the surface of their outwardly happy marriage. There is much love and a deep bond between them; in fact, if she didn’t love her husband, the movie wouldn’t be half as wrenching. But as the marriage slowly unwinds, Joan eventually gives voice to her suppressed feelings and unleashes secrets she’s held close for too long. During the movie’s climactic scenes, Close is at her finest.
The Wife shows at the Salmar Classic at 5 p.m. on Oct 6. There is some strong language and adult themes.