The Wife * * *

          After an opening scene that went for about five minutes I was ready to leave.  I had decided I could not spend more than another second watching these people, but fortunately the scene ended, the screen went blank, the opening credits rolled, and then we got on with the story.....
           It's the fictional story of an American novelist, Joe Castleman, awarded the Nobel prize for literature.
           After celebrating with friends, Joe and "The Wife", Joan Castleman ,fly off to Sweden, along with their adult son David, to collect said prize.

Did you hear about the guy who 
invented the knock knock joke?
He won the no-bell prize.

        Other than to fight with his Dad, it's uncertain why David has come on this trip. He doesn't like his parents, he wishes he were elsewhere and he mostly sulks because he want's to be a writer just like his Dad but  Dad hasn't read his draft.
         They are also accompanied (stalked!) by Nathaniel who is Castleman's uninvited, unauthorised and unwelcome biographer who follows them around.  Joe hates Nathaniel and will have nothing to do with him.
         But  Nathaniel has done his homework and is pretty sure things aren't all they appear to be with Mr and Mrs Castleman.
        In flashbacks from forty, twenty and thirty years ago, we see the early relationship of Joe and Joan and we realise that biographer Nathaniel might be on to something, and Joe might not be all he is cracked up to be.
       But if Joe isn't the "genius" behind his books, who is?
       Considering the title of the film and the reviews and the trailers  I don't think it would be much of  a spoiler to invite you to hazard a guess.  I won't say how she has arranged for his words to hit the page or where they come from  but the agreement has worked fine for thirty years, during which time Joan has put up with Joe's ego and shameless reveling in his fame and his philandering as naive young girls grovel to the literary lion they believe him to be.
        But now on the cusp of the big one both are having doubts about the sham they have put out there for years.
        We are asked to believe the reason they have done this is because when they were aspiring writers in their twenties, Jo was half-baked but Joan loved him anyway. And Joan couldn't make it as a writer because in America in the mid-century as no publishing house would seriously consider a female writer ... Huh??!
        I mean, give me a break and allow me to reel off  a few names! Doris Lessing, Angela Carter, Joyce Carol Oats, Harper Lee, Margaret Atwood, Clarice Lispector, Toni Morrison, Ursula Le Guin,  Susan Sontag.. (do I need to go on? I can if you want me to.)
        The acting  by Jonathan Pryce and Glen Close is very fine,as is their son played by Max Irons, especially when you consider that  they must have all been aware of the ridiculous flaws in the story, but they overcome them to give us convincing characters.
           It looks pretty and it's a fascinating insight into the formal procedure on stage when receiving the Nobel Prize for literature. (I found it especially helpful on that level and feel much better prepared).