Woman In Gold

A Golden Affair

★★★½   Watch IT

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Rating: PG-13 (for some thematic elements
 and brief strong language)
Genre: Drama
Directed By: Simon Curtis
In Theaters: Apr 1, 2015 Wide
Runtime: 1 hr. 50 min.

The Weinstein Company

KILLER REVIEW

A potentially powerful affair becomes a simple walk in the park.

Helen Mirren expectantly shins as an elegant, tortured Jewish émigré, whom together with Ryan Reynolds walk through this predictable film. Such a powerful narrative and history wasted in an overwhelmingly  predictable script, penned by Schoenberg who consulted the expert input of British-Greek playwright Alexi Kaye Campbell. 
There was just enough magic to make me recommend this film - Simon Curtis (My Week with Marilyn) navigates best when presenting the flashback scenes. He moves awkwardly through the annoying and speechy present-day courtroom scenes. The suspense of Maria’s escape from Nazi-occupied Vienna jolts the film to life in the middle, and there are a couple of touching performances, from Tatiana Maslany as the young Maria, and especially Allan Corduner as her father Gustav, whose anguished farewell is far and away the emotional high point. 
Though Mirren is always enjoyable, the film seems to think that her mere presence as a wisecracking widow will be enough for us to forgive its lack of originality.

Author: Neathen Kills

Instagram: @NeathenKills
Chief Editor

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PLOT
WOMAN IN GOLD is the remarkable true story of one woman's journey to reclaim her heritage and seek justice for what happened to her family. Sixty years after she fled Vienna during World War II, an elderly Jewish woman, Maria Altmann (Mirren), starts her journey to retrieve family possessions seized by the Nazis, among them Klimt's famous painting 'Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I'. Together with her inexperienced but plucky young lawyer Randy Schoenberg (Reynolds), she embarks upon a major battle, which takes them all the way to the heart of the Austrian establishment and the U.S. Supreme Court, and forces her to confront difficult truths about the past along the way.

(C) The Weinstein Company