Richard_McGhie

So now that I've recently seen this movie for the first time, here are my thoughts on The Woman in Gold: Especially coming from someone who admittedly wasn't initially familiar with this particular story until fairly recently, while I wouldn't exactly go as far to say that this is a terrible film because I've seen certainly, definitely far worse, to say that I was still left kind of unfortunately underwhelmed by this one would be quite the sad understatement to say the very least. This isn't just one of the most disappointing movies of 2015 in one's honest opinion but also probably the most disappointingly beige, boring and emotionally manipulative movie I have recently seen. And it is especially such a shame for me to say this because I am such a sucker for World War II movies, courtroom dramas and of course character dramas and yet even I can see that the potential was there for this movie, and this quietly inspirational and heroic story in particular, to have all the right ingredients and just be much better executed than it was but somehow in my view, this movie just failed to live up to that potential or even do anything with it, left me feeling nothing but silent boredom throughout the entire runtime (perhaps apart from a few stifled chuckles here and there) and thus I genuinely do believe this story deserved a much better treatment than it was given here.

One honestly kind of has to sympathise with everyone involved for the most part because clearly you can tell that everyone here really tried their hardest and/or at least really made as much effort as they can to make something close to a semi-decent product here but their talents are just being hindered and undermined by this shockingly lazy script.

Is there at least anything I remotely liked about the film? Well, the American and Viennese locations are nice, the costumes are gorgeously designed and I really like the beautiful score by Martin Phipps and Hans Zimmer. I will also legitimately say that the flashback sequences set during the 1920s and '30s that take up only half of the movie are remotely more moving and engaging than the rest of the movie that takes place in the relatively modern day even despite giving us nothing revelatory or new that we didn't already know about how horrifically the Jews were treated by the Nazis during World War II.

When it comes to the performances, they're a mixed bag to say the least.

Elizabeth McGovern, Max Irons, Charles Dance and even Jonathan Pryce (two actors that have both appeared in The Crown, by the way, as Lord Mountbatten and Prince Philip respectively) are just there in thankless, insubstantial cameos or bit roles.

Katie Holmes (aka Rachel Dawes from Batman Begins) doesn't really get that much to work with here and is thus frankly kind of wasted.

Daniel Brühl gives another fine performance as this Austrian investigative journalist who befriends Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds and helps them gather evidence for their case as a way of atoning for the sins of his Nazi father.

The only two performances I will remotely legit say are surprising standouts in this movie (which isn't really saying much) are Tatiana Maslany as the young Maria and Ryan Reynolds as Randy Schoenberg. Tatiana Maslany does such an impressive enough job of conveying all the pained anguish and grief and emotional turmoil that Maria goes through during the flashback sequences that you'd almost wish her story could've benefited from just a couple more flashbacks sequences and I also wish we could've seen a bit more of her than we did. In the case of Ryan Reynolds, while I do of course understand where people would take issue with his slight miscasting and portrayal of Randy Schoenberg, I, for one, thought he gave a not necessarily great but good enough and much more subdued and low-key dramatic performance here.

Helen Mirren does try the very best she can here (bless her), she does confidently prove herself as she usually does to be right up there with the cream of the crop of great British acting talent still working today and I guess her chemistry with Ryan Reynolds is okay at best but at the same time, she just feels oddly miscast in this role. I just honestly don't know where she got the idea to do this Austrian accent that is so bizarrely dodgy and jarring it would make Schwarzenegger himself cringe or even especially these more bizarre, more distracting, cartoonishly black contact lenses that make her look like she's been ripped straight out of one of the Charlie Brown Peanuts cartoons nor does it really help that her characterisation in this movie is just weirdly and frustratingly inconsistent: One moment, she is all fired up and determined to see her case through and get her painting back and then the next moment, she just gives up easily and doesn't really seem to care who gets the painting. And honestly this constant changing of her mind happens probably two or three times in the movie and it frankly grows old and tedious rather quickly. It is almost as if Alexi Kaye Campbell somehow couldn't be bothered to create an compelling or interesting internal conflict for this character, not to mention the fact that she feels much more like a secondary or supporting character in her own story.

Speaking of which, that perfectly leads me to talking about said script frankly being the first major problem with this movie: This is Anglo-Greek playwright Alexi Kaye Campbell's very first (and so far only) major Hollywood screenplay and yet somehow, aside from the obvious globetrotting, it appears to only look and feel like a stage play in and of itself when you watch the movie: Far too wordy, nothing really much happening in terms of action, characters talking in only one specific location in every single scene and even the camerawork and the editing reflect all of that.

The second major problem I have with this movie is with the flashback sequences. Now, don't get me wrong, they ARE emotionally riveting and moving in all the right places and I do understand what the filmmakers were trying to go for here which was basically implement a similar nonlinear storytelling device to what Francis Ford Coppola used in Godfather Part II for example but alas, it just doesn't quite work as well unfortunately because not only do they slow the movie down a bit and grind the pacing to a halt and not only do they lack any real tension, suspense or stakes as they very easily should've done but there just simply isn't enough of them for the story to make any narrative sense whatsoever and they also almost completely skim over Maria's entire backstory. We ARE only briefly told how her aunt died really young in 1925 from meningitis yet we're not even really shown or told what happened to her parents and her sister, what happened to her uncle, were her extended family persecuted and exterminated by the Nazis during the Holocaust or even what happened to her husband or whether or not they possibly had children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren. There is just so much exposition and backstory missing here that you just end up losing any potential emotional investment you could've otherwise had in this story and this particular case, which is kind of a shame really.

Plus, more to the point, I really have to take issue with this film's portrayal of the Austrian government officials as stereotypical moustache-twirling pantomime villains: On the one hand, you do sort of understand, at least from their point of view, why they were aggressively reluctant to relinquish this painting because of how much this painting became part of their national identity since after World War II to the point of earning the moniker "the Mona Lisa of Austria". But on the other hand, in actuality, they only obtained the painting through illicit and criminal means and they were just as much unfortunate, blind victims of the Nazis' criminality and manipulation tactics as Germany was at that time and thus I feel they needed to be portrayed with some nuance and complexity and a shade of grey about them.

The third and final major problem I have with this movie is Simon Curtis's direction and yet at the same time, I refuse to believe directly that this is his fault. Now don't get me wrong, I think Simon Curtis, when he needs to, can be a fine director and I absolutely legitimately dug what he did especially with My Week with Marilyn and even the 1999 BBC TV movie adaptation of David Copperfield but sadly I'm not going to lie when I say that his work here just seems too workmanlike and, in a way, committee-driven. Again, not his fault, he *is* trying at least the best he possibly can but sadly like everything else in this film, the Weinsteins just truly grossly undermined and did him dirty here.

In conclusion, there is honestly nothing really that much else for me to say about Woman in Gold other than yet another film that I really wanted to like especially because of the subject matter and the time period but alas was left for the most part crushingly disappointed and let down although I will remotely take this over something like Ladies in Lavender if I had to choose between the two movies (which again isn't really saying much). If you happen to like this movie more than I do, more power to you, I guess. If you happen to dislike this movie more than I do, that's perfectly fine too. I guess I can only recommend this film if you want to see the Queen and Deadpool globetrotting together in a decent-looking film and even if you're someone who's into true stories or World War II history or courtroom dramas or character dramas. Otherwise, I'm afraid you're going to be as crushingly disappointed as I was.

My overall rating for Woman in Gold: 4.5/10.