Extraordinary women have held positions of authority and respect in the public sphere, but until recently, they were few and usually rare. More often, even the most talented women kept in the background, exerting their influence through men, whether as muse, organizer or the proverbial “power behind the throne.”
The Wife is a story about a woman in the shadow of what society called a great man. Set in the recent past—in 1992, with flashbacks to the 1950s and ’60s—The Wife stars Glenn Close as Joan Castleman, wife of celebrated novelist Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce). She shares his excitement in the opening scene when Stockholm calls, informing him that he will receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. However, a hairline fracture is visible on her face—a mental reservation, a shadow of a doubt.
It’s an emotionally rich story, directed by Sweden’s Björn Runge, and adapted from Meg Wolitzer’s bestselling novel by screenwriter Jane Anderson. As it unfolds, suspicion mounts that Joan was more than Joe’s proofreader and housekeeper, albeit she performed both roles. Flashbacks build the substantial backstory as Joan, Joe and their sulky son David (Max Irons) process through the regal setting of the Nobel Prize ceremony. Joan was Joe’s student at Smith College in the ’50s, where he inspired her devotion to writing and sharpened her prose. While a student, she attended a function honoring a respected “lady writer” who tells her, “The public can’t stand bold prose from a woman” and predicted she’ll never make a career as an author. Men, she advised, are the critics, the editors, the publishers. Women will never be taken seriously.
That’s not the whole truth of a literary era that include Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith, but it’s an accurate generalization. Serious literature, like most other things deemed important, was still a man’s world.
Joe’s flirtation with Joan led to marriage. Of course, his insatiable libido will also demand release elsewhere, but such was the expectation for great novelists in those days. Yet, she is responsible for his contract with a major New York publisher, where she works pouring coffee for the men. One of the editors mentioned they need a Jewish novelist for their list—this was the age of Philip Roth and Saul Bellow. She knew just the man, her husband, and recognizing the flaws in the manuscript of his first novel, she rewrote it. From then on, he might have had the “big ideas,” as she says, but she provided depth of character and dialogue that lives on the page. He received full credit for their covert collaboration.
Threatening to reveal the family secret, Nathaniel Bone (Christian Slater) follows the Castlemans to Stockholm and threatens a tell-all biography based on rumors and implications. He is an ambiguous character, pursuing the truth behind the fiction to serve his own ambition.
The Wife is a superior story for its emotional complexity. Joe tends to narcissism but is not uncaring. A study in poise and composure in public, privately, Joan is capable of bitterness and flashes of anger at her husband’s self-justifications. And yet, they are a solidly old-married couple, viewing each other’s foibles with benign tolerance. David is a wild card, a writer eager to please his father, yet resentful of living in his shadow. He seeks Joe’s approval and Joe doles it out with a parsimonious hand. Joe thinks his son is weak and spoiled. He might be right.
Joan is The Wife’s sympathetic protagonist, but there are no villains except the set of unreflecting norms that prevented her from becoming a respected novelist in her own right. The Wife was out last summer but has returned to theaters. Oscar consideration for Close is possible.
