MOVIE REVIEW: Woman in Gold

Published Jul 31, 2015

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WOMAN IN GOLD

DIRECTOR: Simon Curtis

CAST: Helen Mirren, Ryan Reynolds, Daniel Bruhl and Katie Holmes,

CLASSIFICATION: 10-12PG P

RUNNING TIME: 96 minutes

RATING: ***

 

 

 

UNLIKE another film about art looted by the Nazis during WWII – The Monuments Men – Woman In Gold personalises its story. While it still falters a bit on the side of a cookie-cutter story treatment, this film is a whole lot more fascinating than George Clooney’s stumble.

What Woman In Gold does have going for it is a strong performance from the always on point Mirren (pictured) and a fascinating true story.

The film takes its narrative cue from the real-life story of Maria Altmann (Mirren), who late in life took on the Austrian government to claim back a painting of her aunt, plus several other works, which had been looted by the Nazis.

With the help of lawyer Randy Schoenberg (Reynolds), she navigated a labyrinth of court room appearances and arbitration – which is shown in excruciatingly slow detail and helps to impress upon the viewer that something like this does not just get solved overnight.

Reynolds is almost too low-key as Schoenberg, creating the obligatory plucky, if a tad naive character, supported by his generically supportive wife, Pam (Holmes).

This is a David vs Goliath story and we root for the pair because Mirren especially, creates a real character. She is regal as Altmann, creating a woman who had a no-nonsense approach to life, who learnt early on not to look back, but live in the moment – going back to Austria meant dealing with what the people she had left behind went through and she makes us feel her pain.

She is matched for screen presence, strangely enough, by people who never share the screen with her – Antje Traue plays her aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer, the subject of the painting in question who serenely, but sadly, steps through the flashback scenes – and Tatiana Maslany as young Maria who has to make the difficult choice to leave her family and country of birth.

Still, this is the Hollywood fictional treatment, not a documentary, so it is about creating an emotional response in you. The music shamelessly tugs at the heartstrings while the film flits back and forth in time – and in that sense it works.

While the film does delve into the subject of restitution and touches lightly on Austria’s complicity in the persecution of Jews during WWII, themes never get knotty, staying on the sketchy side as the court case drags on and Altmann has to wrestle with her own demons after almost 60 years in the New World.

While much has been written online about the film’s lush cinematography, this is not something I can comment on as the screening at the Waterfront Cinema Nouveau was terribly washed out, turning the look into a digital oddity – testament once again to their lack of a projectionist who actually knows how their equipment works.

If you liked The Age of Adaline or The Soloist, you will like this

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