The Wife (2017)

Glenn Close is divine in a role that will finally win her an Oscar. Her quiet composure is so powerful. The story is simple yet brilliant and the execution is excellent. The narcissistic novelist Joe Castleman has won the Nobel Prize in Literature and he brings his son and wife Joan to Stockholm. Close's performance manages to capture decades of marriage in her performance. Glenn Close's daughter plays younger Joan allowing us to see how their relationship developed.  The allegation is that Joe's novels were actually written by Joan. How dramatic is that?

Downton Abbey (2010-15)

Downton Abbey is a costume soap opera that started out with a phenomenal first season. And it kept it up for a bit, but then they fell into a lull in the fourth and fifth seasons. Gladly, they ended strong with an excellent final two episodes, tying nicely everyone's story lines in a touching and emotional way. As a big ensemble drama, there are a lot of characters. And admittedly, some characters have more interesting story lines than others. You try to equally invest in the upstairs aristocrats and the downstairs servants. The separation between the two spheres was distinct but I enjoyed watching their interaction as well.

The characters that last all 6 seasons maintain continuity in a world of change. The great estates of England are in decline by the end of WWI and we watch the times change and the family adapt. It is a period drama, and the time period always played an important part of the story as new technology was introduced and as events unfolded around the world. And time moves very quickly episode to episode. The music and cinematography of Downton Abbey is really pretty too. It takes place in the gorgeous Highclere Castle.

Mary was known for being mean to poor Edith. Their dynamic was always funny to watch. Mr. Carson and Ms. Hughes also had some great banter. But Dame Maggie Smith was was the star of the show with her never ending one-liners.

The Woman in Gold (2015)

This movie is dramatization of a true story of Nazi art theft and the legal nightmare that Maria Altmann went through to recover the paintings that were stolen from her family.  These five Klimts include the iconic Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, which exemplifies Klimt's golden phase.  This movie combines two things that I like: legal drama and fine art, all set against the backdrop of the Holocaust.  Not only is the story fascinating, it is devastating. The movie is driven by themes of legal right versus cultural right. Klimt has come to be representative of Austrian culture, and his artworks are national treasures. Altmann hires a family friend to be her lawyer, an inexperienced Randol Schoenberg, the grandson of the famous Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg. Altmann came from a wealthy Jewish family in Vienna that hosted the Austrian intellectuals of the day in a renowned salon.  Both characters are steeped in twentieth century Austrian culture, but their families were lain victim to the atrocities committed by Austrians complicit with the Nazis, yet the Austrian government has the audacity to suggest a cultural right to the paintings.

Helen Mirren is excellent as always as a woman torn between the rush of terrible memories Austria reminds her of and the pursuit of what is legally hers.  Tatiana Maslany convincingly plays a young Altmann, whose story is told in stylish black-and-white.  Ryan Reynolds plays the inexperienced lawyer and he comes across as kind of awkward, which is not necessarily a bad thing.