TIFF: Glenn Close is "The Wife"

our ongoing adventures at TIFF. An abdriged version of this review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad.

Film festivals nearly always provide curious dialogues between films that you weren't expecting. On the same day on the exact same screen at TIFF I managed to see two films about female writers and the male writers in their lives who take up all the oxygen (and praise) in the room. Who would have thought that a film about the origins of Frankenstein (just discussed) and a star vehicle for Glenn Close in Stockholm would have so much in common? 

THE WIFE (Björn Runge)
Joan Castleman (Glenn Close) is a longsuffering wife who would bristle at that very description. She's married to a famous novelist Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce) and their homophonic names are no coincidence. The silver-haired couple have been together for nearly half a century and are inseparable if not quite interchangeable...

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Glenn Close is "The Wife"

by Murtada

Close at the Tonys in June

Glenn Close is not going to be ignored. Anymore. Six years after Albert Nobbs she has signed on for a new part. It’s not a supporting authority figure (Guardians of the Galaxy) or an uncredited cameo (Warcraft) -she’s playing the title character! The film is The Wife in which Close will play Joan, a woman who gave up her own literary ambitions to support her successful novelist husband. On the eve of him receiving the Nobel Prize for literature she has a crisis of faith in him and in their marriage and starts re-examining her choices.

The film was first announced last February but it seems that whatever kinks they had then, have been smoothed out and shooting stars in a couple of weeks. The film is helmed by Swedish director Björn Runge and adapted by Jane Anderson (Olive Kitteridge) from Meg Wolitzer’s novel. Frances McDormand, Logan Lerman and Brit Marling who were previously attached, have dropped out. Now the supporting cast includes Jonathan Pryce (as the husband), Christian Slater, Elizabeth McGovern, Max Irons (Glenn’s Reversal of Fortune co-star Jeremy’s son), Harry Lloyd (Stephen Hawking’s friend in The Theory of Everything) and Glenn's daughter Annie Starke.

Sounds like a juicy part for Glenn. Hope she goes all Marquise de Merteuil on Pryce, that would be a fun battle of wiles to watch. Are you excited to see Glenn leading a movie again?

The Riot Club: or, a brief history of posh British cinema

David takes a look at the British cultural legacy of poshness as The Riot Club now out on DVD...

Before The Riot Club was a movie, it was a West End play called Posh. Laura Wade’s simple, cutting title gets right to the heart of the social crisis at the centre of her work, which presents a fictionalised version of Oxford’s infamous Bullingdon Club, whose members have included both the current British Prime Minister and Mayor of London. While the traumatic events of the play and film are invented, the social privilege they demonstrate is a British legacy that has lingered throughout history. It continues to be a talking point today, with British soap opera actor Danny Dyer memorably taking pot shots at ‘posh boy’ Benedict Cumberbatch and the social elitism of the British cultural industries. (Dyer’s complaints of elitism are perhaps reflected in some of The Riot Club’s casting – Max Irons (son of Jeremy) and Freddie Fox (son of Edward) both come from British acting dynasties.)

Britain’s exports and image abroad have been shaped by the likes of Merchant Ivory, Jane Austen and Downton Abbey as one steeped in this kind of privilege and elitism. Occasionally British films of a different kind will have a big enough cultural impact to surface in the timeline of world cinema, with the kitchen-sink dramas of the late 1950s and ‘60s perhaps the most notable instance. But it is the posh boys that have really dominated British cinema’s worldwide reputation, from Leslie Howard (the first cinematic Henry Higgins) through Hugh Grant to the current crop led by Eddie Redmayne and Cumberbatch. 

But why is this model of Britishness so favoured internationally? [More...]

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17 Thoughts I Had While Watching "Woman in Gold"

Have you seen Woman in Gold which has been out on DVD for a bit now? It's about an old Austrian Jew (Helen Mirren) who immigrated to America during the Holocaust and attempts to get her family's original Gustav Klimt paintings back which were stolen by the Nazis and now "belong" to a museum in Austria.

Here are a dozen plus thoughts I had while watching it...

What do you know about art restitution?

• Nothing? It's okay. I didn't either. Helen Mirren will teach us. She speaks most of her lines as if to a small child. In fact, a lot of the characters do. They're constantly explaining the movie's plot and conflicts to us. And after explaining things there's sometimes bits of dialogue like...

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