電影《愛·欺》影評：Marriage is a balance of interests

The Wife (2017) is a typical feminist film about being true to oneself. It tells a story of an old couple. The husband, Joan, won The Nobel Prize for literature and became famous, while his wife, Joe, was a housekeeping anonymity at home. However, the truth is totally different. In fact, it was Joe that produced many excellent works, and her husband thanked her by derailing her again and again. In my opinion, I think the screenplay itself has a lot of tension, and the characters of the couple is typical. Although the story is imperfect, the relationship between the two characters can stand. In addition, Glen Close and Jonathan Price give amazing performances to us. The stoical wife and arrogant husband, including the unequal treatment of them from the beginning to the end, and the subtle changes in their identities are well performed, which I think is the key to the success of this film.

The story is divided into two time lines. One is the old couple knowing that they won the Nobel Prize, and their journey to accept the prize. And the other is to recall the story of their meeting and writing together. Joan was very excited to know that he won the Nobel Prize and he was very grateful to his wife. So it make us feel that he is a person who loves his wife and knows how to be grateful. On the trip to accept the award, however, they met a persistent biographer. Gradually, from the the biographer, we began to realize that things not looks like what we all think it is. A lot of Joan’s work is actually written by Joe. And Joan just made some editing work. So Joe was the one who deserved to win a Nobel Prize.

From the flashback, we know that the cooperation between the couple was very harmonious at the beginning. In order to make a living, they came up with the idea. It is easier for Joe to succeed if she publishes her work named after Joan. On the other hand, without Joe, Joan would never be able to write a great book on his own. However, year by year, they actually lived a better life. But Joan became unfaithful and began to cheat constantly. What’s more, he also got used to people's praise of his talent which actually is Joe's. Finally, when Joan made his greatest courage but still dared not face the reality, Joe was completely desperate. So they had a big quarrel in the hotel, and Joan died of a heart attack unexpectedly. At the end of the story, Joe does not expose the scandal of Joan because she knows it is in vain. So Joe only tells the truth to his own children.

Actually what troubled me is the last scene, After the death of Joan, the director gave Joe a close-up shot. Joe was crying, and suddenly the film was cut to Joe sat in the plane, as if nothing has occurred. Joe looked at Joan's notebook peacefully. The first time I saw here make me feel very abrupt and uncomfortable, because this shot is supposed to be the emotional high point. So here should be longer between Joe and Joan. However, the director is more rational than I think, as if nothing has happened. But when I saw it for the second time, I understood that what the director wanted to show was the dying marriage. If Joe was sad, it was right to stay here for a long time. But Joe was thinking more about interests not love, so the director ( or the film editor ) cut it off quickly. It is designed to show that he want to use the story of the old couple to express his negative attitude towards marriage. That is, behind the marriage is the balance between interests, when the imbalance, the marriage will collapse in the end. In this film, the event that caused the imbalance was that Joan won the highest honor, the Nobel Prize. After the death of Joan, the imbalance disappeared, and Joe got a kind of relief and freedom.

There are two parts I don't like in the film. The First one is the relationship between Joan and photographer. The director is deliberately want to show that Joan cannot change the nature. But both of the occasion when two people meet and their identity is hard to fall in love with each other. The second is the final hotel quarrel. In my opinion, it is too hysterical, too hard. A great film should leave the audience some thinking space. The audience can imagine how much compromise Joe has made for this home. This quarrel which like a summary at the end is really a unsuccessful way.