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.
