The Wife(2018)

Plot Summary

• In 1958, Joan Archer (Annie Starke) meets Joseph Castleman (Harry Lloyd), a handsome young married professor at a women-only college. Although already an accomplished (if unpublished) writer, Joan is awed by Joseph's force of personality and advice that "a writer must write, as one must breathe". Joseph had the habit of cracking and eating Walnuts while in conversation. Joseph starts by inviting Joan to babysit his daughter while he takes his wife Carol on a date. Joseph demonstrates to Joan how miserable his life is in his own house. Gradually, Joan falls in love with Joseph. They begin an affair on the college campus.Joan meets a published alumni authoress Elaine Mozell (Elizabeth McGovern), whose cynical views on opportunities for female writers disheartens Joan. Elaine says that the public cannot stomach bold prose from a woman. Elaine tells Joan that female writers will never catch the attention of the editors and the publishers who make the decisions that make or break careers.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 poor. 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.By 1968, Joseph and Joan are living in a large seaside home in Connecticut. Joan is hard at work writing a novel, to be published under Joseph's name, while Joseph supports her by cooking, cleaning, and caring for their first child, David (Max Irons). As Joseph and Joan converse, it is apparent that Joan's novel is a reflection of their life together, which bores Joan.A narcissist, over the next four decades Joseph has several adulterous affairs and tells everyone that Joan "does not write".By 1992, an elderly Joseph (Jonathan Pryce) has become a celebrated author. Jospeh and Joan are civil to each other and Joan still has sex with Joseph, even though it is unenthusiastic. Joseph is awaiting a call from the Nobel Prize committee. In the early hours of the morning, the long-awaited call arrives, and Joseph learns that he has won the Nobel prize in Literature, although Joan (Glenn Close) seems less than happy about the honor. The committee says that Joseph's career has a remarkable span to it, he writes with extraordinary intimacy, wit and depth, and has also challenged the novel form in many ways which would inspire authors for many generations to come.David, who idolizes his father, seeks Joseph's critique of and approval for his first short story, unaware that Joan has written all Joseph's books. Joseph, Joan, and David fly to Stockholm as Nathaniel Bone (Christian Slater), a biographer with a taste for scandal, tries to embed himself into the Castleman's lives. Susannah, their daughter, is unable to travel as she is pregnant and is due anytime. Joseph is irritated with Nathaniel that somehow he got on the same flight as them and won't give him permission to write his biography.In Stockholm, Walter Bark (Johan Widerberg) is assigned to Joseph to take care of all his official engagements. Linnea (Karin Franz Korlof) is assigned as Joseph's personal photographer. Joseph can sense that Joan is not happy and is not enjoying the trip to Stockholm. Joan's unhappiness worsens as adulation is heaped on Joseph. Joseph enthralls his audience with snippets from his life and he enjoys basking in the spotlight. His attempts to publicly thank her for supporting him only embitter her further. Joan does not want Joseph to thank her in his speech.David is also feeling left out as Joseph continually refers to him as an "emerging writer" who is still trying to find his voice. David believes that he will never measure up to his father, who has a hit novel right out of the gate. David says that Joseph has not even read his short story, to which Joseph responds that it is a solid start, but not a work of genius which is what David wants to hear.Nathaniel, sensing Joan's emotional state, induces her to talk with him over drinks and says that he knows that Joan has ghostwritten a major portion or even all of each of Joseph's novels. Joan does not admit the truth, but Nathaniel is convinced by their conversation that he is correct.Meanwhile, Joseph tries to seduce the beautiful young photographer Linnea who is assigned to him. Joseph is unable to consummate the affair due to his cardiovascular disease. Joseph accuses Joan of abandoning him, while Joan expresses her outrage over Joseph's attempted affair. The argument ceases when they learn that their daughter Susannah (Alix Wilton Regan) has given birth to their grandson.The night of the Nobel Prize ceremony, David confronts his parents after being told by Nathaniel that Joan is the only writer in the family. Joseph and Joan deny everything. At the ceremony and banquet which follows, Joan becomes increasingly upset by the accolades showered on Joseph. At the ceremony and the banquet which follows, Joan feels increasingly humiliated because Joe praises her as his support, his muse, his soul. She flees and Joseph follows her. He demands that she take his Nobel Prize, but she refuses.At their hotel, Joan tells Joseph she is divorcing him. They argue violently, and Joseph has a heart attack. Prostrate on the bed, he begs for Joan's love, and she tells him she loves him; he replies, "You're such a good liar," and dies moments later.On the airplane back to the United States, Nathaniel offers his condolences to Joan. She tells him that if he tries to print anything that undermines Joseph's reputation as a writer, she will sue him. David overhears her. Joan says that she will tell David and his sister the truth when they get home. She then turns the page to the journal she had opened, runs her hand over a blank page, and looks up.

Storyline

• Behind any great man, there's always a greater woman - and you're about to meet her. Joan Castleman ( Glenn Close ): a highly intelligent and still-striking beauty - the perfect devoted wife. Forty years spent sacrificing her own talent, dreams and ambitions to fan the flames of her charismatic husband Joe ( Jonathan Pryce ) and his skyrocketing literary career. Ignoring his infidelities and excuses because of his "art" with grace and humour. Their fateful pact has built a marriage upon uneven compromises. And Joan's reached her breaking point. On the eve of Joe's Nobel Prize for Literature, the crown jewel in a spectacular body of work, Joan's coup de grace is to confront the biggest sacrifice of her life and secret of his career. — anonymous After nearly forty years of marriage, Joan and Joe Castleman ( Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce ) are complements. Where Joe is casual, Joan is elegant. Where Joe is vain, Joan is self-effacing. And where Joe enjoys his very public role as Great American Novelist, Joan pours her considerable intellect, grace, charm, and diplomacy into the private role of Great Man's Wife. Joe is about to be awarded the Nobel Prize for his acclaimed and prolific body of work. Joe's literary star has blazed since he and Joan first met in the late 1950s. THE WIFE interweaves the story of the couple's youthful passion and ambition with a portrait of a marriage, thirty-plus years later--a lifetime's shared compromises, secrets, betrayals, and mutual love. — Sony Pictures Classics This plot description is chronological, although major parts of the film are told in flashback. In 1956, Joan Archer (Annie Starke) meets Joseph Castleman (Harry Lloyd), a handsome young married professor at a women-only college. Although already an accomplished (if unpublished) writer, Joan is awed by Joseph's force of personality and advice that "a writer must write". Joan meets a published alumni authoress (Elizabeth McGovern), whose cynical views on opportunities for female writers disheartens Joan. 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 poor. 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. By 1960, Joseph and Joan are living in a large seaside home in Connecticut. Joan is hard at work writing a novel, to be published under Joseph's name, while Joseph supports her by cooking, cleaning, and caring for their first child, David. As Joseph and Joan converse, it is apparent that Joan's novel is a reflection of their life together, which bores Joan.. 1992. American novelist Joe Castleman has been named this year's recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, the award not totally a surprise but the "telephone call" a relief nonetheless. Joe's wife, Joan Castleman, the two who met in 1958 when she was a student in his Creative Writing class at Smith College, he married to his first wife Carol at the time, is equally as excited, she who is prepared to take on the subordinate role in supporting this Nobel journey with and for him as she has with almost everything else in his life. With their daughter Susannah nearing the end of her pregnancy, the only person that will accompany them to Stockholm is their son, David Castleman, an aspiring writer himself. Although closer to his mother, David is searching for his father's approval instead for his first major writing effort in he being "the writer", that approval which seems difficult for Joe to provide regardless of his true views which places a strain between son and father. Much to Joe's chagrin, who also is on the trip to Stockholm is Nathaniel Bone, who is doing research for an unauthorized biography on Joe. The pressure Nathaniel places on Joe and Joan to cooperate with him increases as Nathaniel has received a contract for the biography, the interest greater with Nobel laureate attached to his name. As a greater spotlight is placed on Joe and only by association on Joan in support of him, Joan may come to reevaluate the role she willingly first took on early in their marriage when he was just starting his writing career and that she has played up until now. — Huggo