{"id":56243,"date":"2017-09-13T20:20:30","date_gmt":"2017-09-14T00:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/festival-preview-glenn-close-is-spectacular-as-the-wife\/"},"modified":"2017-09-13T20:20:30","modified_gmt":"2017-09-14T00:20:30","slug":"festival-preview-glenn-close-is-spectacular-as-the-wife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/festival-preview-glenn-close-is-spectacular-as-the-wife\/","title":{"rendered":"Festival Preview: Glenn Close is Spectacular as \u2018The Wife\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Festival Preview: Glenn Close is Spectacular as \u2018The Wife\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n

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Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce are happily married, or not, in THE WIFE.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Reporting from the Toronto Film Festival to share with you a heads up on Glenn Close\u2019s next possible Oscar bid \u201cThe Wife\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Joan Castleman (Glenn Close) is a long-suffering wife who would bristle at that very description. She\u2019s married to a famous novelist Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce) and their homophonic names are no coincidence. The silver-haired couple<\/a> have been together for nearly half a century and are inseparable if not quite interchangeable.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0THE WIFE\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>begins we learn that Joe has just been named the Nobel prize winner in literature and the couple<\/a> are to travel to Stockholm together for the ceremony. They\u2019re so happy they actually jump on their bed in a singularly charming scene. This slow burn starts out playful but it deepens as it goes thanks to Close\u2019s brilliant star turn\u2026<\/p>\n

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Close\u2019s own daughter Annie Starke plays The Wife as a young college student<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When the cracks in the happy marriage facade begin to show you see what Bj\u00f6rn Runge, a Swedish director making his first English language film, and Glenn Close are up to in their concise adaptation of Meg Wolitzer\u2019s bestseller.<\/p>\n

All the principle characters in Joe\u2019s orbit also happen to be writers and resent\u00a0him,<\/em>\u00a0if not quite his enormous success, for different reasons: his son David (Max Irons) never gets the encouragement he needs, his wife Joan was a promising writer who set her own career aside when she married him, and then there\u2019s Nathaniel (Christian Slater) who\u2019s been trailing the family for years trying to get permission to write Joe\u2019s biography.<\/p>\n

The interpersonal dynamics and face-offs are the savory meat of the film. To my personal astonishment Glenn Close restricts herself to chewing on it rather than the scenery! Put simply it\u2019s the best work she\u2019s done in over 20 years.<\/p>\n

\"\"Close\u2019s opacity as an actress, the unknowability of that glacial face, has often been disguised by her sheer volume and ferocity in so many gorgon roles. Here in Joan\u2019s quieter less sinister register, she\u2019s spectacular. You constantly attempt to figure Joan out but Joan\u00a0will not have it<\/em>. She prefers to remain a mystery, hiding her true feelings from everyone, including possibly herself. Her mercurial moods will shift within scenes \u2014 just when you expect her to double down on anger she\u2019ll throw compassion at you, and vice versa keeping you off balance. At one point in a brilliantly acted private \u2018date\u2019 with that would-be biographer, she says \u201cI\u2019m shy\u201d with something like mock flirtation. It sounds like a lie, but it\u2019s actually the truth of this mesmerizing character.<\/p>\n

The film isn\u2019t quite as coy as Close, eventually revealing its hand. Joan Castleman and her poker face would not approve. But that, in a nutshell, is the satisfying friction of the film, a star vehicle wherein the star keeps threatening to jump from her own limo.<\/p>\n

The Wife currently has no firm release date but if it wins distribution by the end of the year, expect a Best Actress campaign for Glenn Close.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The post Festival Preview: Glenn Close is Spectacular as \u2018The Wife\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a>\n<\/div>\n

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Festival Preview: Glenn Close is Spectacular as ‘The Wife’<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n