The Wife

The Wife is a 2017 drama film directed by Björn L. Runge and written by Jane Anderson, based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Meg Wolitzer. It stars Glenn Close, Jonathan Pryce, and Christian Slater, and follows an aging woman (Close) who questions her life choices as she travels to Stockholm with her husband (Pryce), who is set to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. The film premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2017, and was theatrically released in the United States on August 17, 2018, by Sony Pictures Classics. It received generally positive reviews from critics, with Close's performance garnering widespread acclaim. She won the Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, Independent Spirit Award and Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress for her performance, and was also nominated for the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Actress. Plot In 1958, young Joan Archer, a college student at Smith College, is awed by her professor Joseph Castleman, a handsome, young, married man, and his force of personality and advice. Later, Joan meets a published alumna female author whose cynical view of opportunities available to female writers disheartens her. Two years later, Joseph has been fired for having an affair with Joan, his marriage is failing, and his first attempt at writing a novel turns out very poorly. Joan, a secretary at a publishing house, observes how the all-male editors dismiss women writers. When Joan criticizes Joseph's work, he threatens to end his relationship with her, claiming she cannot love "a hack." Joan agrees to fix Joseph's novel for him. The work, titled The Walnut, is published and becomes a bestseller.