Now Reading
THE WIFE: Glenn Close Can’t Save This Dull Relationship Drama

THE WIFE: Glenn Close Can’t Save This Dull Relationship Drama

THE WIFE: Glenn Close can't save this dull relationship drama

The Bad Sex in Literature Award, a dubious honour handed out to authors of preposterous literary sex scenes annually, has unexpectedly grown in stature to become one of the prizes writers fear receiving the most. Last year, Christopher Bollen’s novel The Destroyers claimed the award, largely down to just two words – the anatomically confusing simile where he compared the male protagonist’s genitals to a “billiard rack”.

The award has been handed out every year since 1993, but if it debuted just a year earlier, there’s little doubt that it would have been handed to Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce), the author at the centre of The Wife, a period drama set somewhat inexplicably in 1992.

An acclaimed writer – or a successful fraud?

Even though we are told he’s due to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature barely five minutes into the drama, this life changing news is preceded by an introductory sex scene between Joe and his long suffering wife Joan (Glenn Close). With his literary genius yet to be disclosed to the audience, it’s hard to suspend disbelief at his supposed talent for writing after hearing his bizarre attempts at dirty talk, his wife somehow managing to suppress laughter at the self-aggrandising manner with which he describes his appendage. The scene itself feels innocuous, almost at odds with the quietly devastating domestic drama that follows due to the playful repertoire between the couple.

And yet, this seemingly inane sequence of dirty talk all but screams that Joe is not the iconic literary mastermind the world thinks he is, and that his dearth of creativity has been frequently increasing the gap between himself and the talented wife who bailed on a literary career to support him. You can tell a lot about an author from the manner in which they describe sex – and from the opening scene onwards, any literature critic would surely feel that Joe is more deserving of a bad sex in literature prize than a Nobel.

THE WIFE: Glenn Close can't save this dull relationship drama
source: Picturehouse Entertainment

Joe and Joan initially met when he was a young literature professor, and she was his student. Despite her clear talent for writing, she was persuaded by a female author to give up the dream, due to the male dominated world of publishing allowing few women writers to hit the bookshelves. Flash forward to 1992, and Joe is now a successful, critically acclaimed author and Joan has given everything up in order to raise a family and support his career.

After getting the call to Sweden to accept the Nobel, they fly over – but with an unwanted biographer following every move (Christian Slater), trying to get tell-all interviews for a book that will document the many womanising scandals that have followed the author around. Joe repeatedly thanks his wife as his inspiration – and yet she remains confused as to why she sticks around, especially when his adulterous ways are an open secret, and have remained a constant nuisance into old age. With a biographer circling round ready for the pair to regurgitate past demons, it’s no surprise that old wounds come back in the open.

Ingmar Bergman meets middle of the road Oscar Bait

Despite two amiable (if nowhere near Oscar calibre, as predicted elsewhere) performances from Close and Pryce, The Wife suffers due to lacklustre, pedestrian direction from Bjorn Runge. A veteran Swedish director whose work remains largely unknown and undistributed outside of his home country, The Wife suggests that his most significant talent is helping actors achieve noteworthy performances – because outside of this, his film leaves a lot to be desired, feeling every bit as passionless as the marriage it depicts.

It’s hard to watch without the presumption that, somewhere along the way, Runge had the lofty goal of becoming the modern day successor to Ingmar Bergman, the most well known filmmaker from his homeland, with the intention of breaking out to international audiences by reminding them of Swedish cinema’s lineage of depressing domestic dramas. This may be a wrongheaded assumption, but it does feel like a Bergman film with the rough edges smoothed out; a depiction of lifelong misery akin to Scenes from a Marriage, yet struggling to grapple with the innate existential crisis that’s triggered by dedicating your life to somebody who stood in a way of making a better one for yourself.

THE WIFE: Glenn Close can't save this dull relationship drama
source: Picturehouse Entertainment

Mostly, Runge just comes across as having an anonymous stylistic sensibility, leaving his actors to overcompensate with their performances due to nothing else interesting occurring onscreen. This is most easily exemplified in how he recreates the period setting of 1992 – or more so, how he doesn’t, leaving only a passing reference to Bill Clinton in Time Magazine and the sights of people smoking indoors as any signal of a different era. The film is adapted from Meg Wolitzer’s 2003 novel, and is likely maintaining an early 90’s setting so the flashbacks to the 50’s, when Joan gave up a writing career to become a full time supportive wife, are more tangible due to the widespread sexism of the time.

But this also seems pointless, as setting the film in the modern day and having the flashbacks take place sometime in the 70’s or 80’s will still lay bare an industry stubbornly averse to promoting female voices that would continue to make Joan’s narrative trajectory believable. It’s certainly preferable to the half hearted utilisation of a period setting that we’re left with in its place.

The Wife: Conclusion

The Wife is a middlebrow bore, a domestic drama with an intriguing concept that’s made easily forgettable due to the middle of the road direction from Bjorn Runge. Glenn Close is a veteran whose body of work shows how deserving she is of an Academy Award – but it would be a travesty if this were the vehicle to finally get her onto the stage of the Kodak Theatre.

The Wife is currently in cinemas in the US, and will be released in the UK on September 28.

Does content like this matter to you?


Become a Member and support film journalism. Unlock access to all of Film Inquiry`s great articles. Join a community of like-minded readers who are passionate about cinema - get access to our private members Network, give back to independent filmmakers, and more.

Join now!

Scroll To Top