When best-selling author Meg Wolitzer wrote her novel, The Wife (2003), she could not have imagined its current feminist resonance, nor the movie of the book, The Wife, soon to be released starring Glenn Close. The wife of a celebrated novelist as he is awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, Close's Joan Castleman is demure, even restrained as she seethes with resentment at her husband's narcissism. Some men, it seems, believe their lies–mostly, the ones about themselves and their own powers. And Close as the wife, takes it, her affect perfect explosion-under-composure, like her Norma Desmond, until the façade cracks, unlike Desmond's deluded Sunset Boulevard soul. Ever the wife, she reels it back.

Jonathan Pryce as Joe Castleman cleans up nicely in black tie in Stockholm, prepping for the Nobel ceremony in a luxury hotel, eying the young woman who is his minder. Directed by Bjorn Runge, the movie has a European feel even as it reflects a decidedly American couple. Max Irons excels as the couple’s troubled son. Christian Slater hangs around as a pesky would-be biographer who knows too much about the actual composition of the Castleman books.

Both Pryce and Close were present for a celebration of the film at the Monkey Bar last week. Nan Talese, who has edited Meg Wolitzer, commanded a table with her husband Gay Talese, chatting with many others, including Meg's best-selling mom Hilma Wolitzer. Meg is clearly on a roll with a hit novel that came out earlier this summer, The Female Persuasion, and of course it will be made into a movie–this time starring Nicole Kidman.

Regina Weinreich

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