The Wife                              4 ½ stars

In what is sure to be one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year, The Wife, Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce star as a couple who have been married for nearly forty years who are about to face the greatest test of how solid their marriage is.  Joe Castleman (Pryce), a famed novelist has just been awarded the Nobel Prize in literature so he and his wife Joan (Close) are about to travel to Stockholm, Sweden to accept the award.  It will be on this trip, also with their son that everything about their marriage will come out in the open causing the full gamut of emotions to be released by these people.  Their son David has been doing some serious writing as well and is very troubled at not receiving the attention from his father that he thinks he deserves.  Flashbacks to the late fifties and sixties show us the early relationship between Joe and Joan, how he had an affair while married to his first wife and how he struggled as a writer at first but became more successful after being married to Joan.  As I watched Glenn Close’s reaction to events and the expressiveness of her face I felt I was viewing a true master of acting.  She will make you feel what the character is feeling.  The story is rather slow moving at first but is well written and I think it is safe to say there will be some Academy Award nominations for this film including Best Actress for Glenn Close (to add to her six previous nominations).