The Wife (2018)

Despite its predictability and cop-out ending, this film is brilliant.
Joseph Castleman (Jonathan Pryce) is one of the most beloved and praised authors in the country and now, he has won the Nobel Prize for literature, and travels to Stockholm to collect. Though he is not the only one being honored, he is the only one who has an entourage. Accompanying him is his long-suffering wife, Joan (the magnificent Glenn Close), whom he lavishes praises on though she insists on him not even wanting him to thank her during his acceptance speech.
Also coming is their son, David (Max Irons, great) who is a young writer who shows promise and rebuffs his mother's praise, wanting only his father to tell him that he's good. And he still smokes despite Joseph insisting that he stop. And there is also his wannabe biographer, Nathaniel (Christian Slater) who does his research.
The film also details the beginnings of Joe's and Joan's relationship, which began when Joan (now portrayed by Annie Starke) was one of Joe's (now Manhattan's Harry Lloyd's) students. For whatever reason, she falls in love with him, drawing him away from his current wife and young daughter and cultivating his extreme love of writing. The scene that sets the whole plot into motion is when Joe and Joan attend an oral reading from a female author of Elaine Mozell and she promptly puts an end to Joan's hopes and dreams, saying that she will never be taken seriously or become a famous author because she's not a man. And this is 1958, apparently Edna Ferber, Pearl Buck and Laura Ingalls Wilder meant nothing.
The truth comes out slowly as the relationship falls apart, in the present time of 1992, when the main plot occurs. She smokes when she shouldn't, he eats too much when he's had past heart attacks and they bicker but reunite when daughter, Susanna (Alix Wilton Regan) gives birth.
It isn't until Joe emphatically thanks Joan during his speech that she returns back to the fancy hotel and starts shoving clothes into her suitcase; she's finally going to leave him. Only she doesn't, he suffers a fatal heart attack.
On the flight home, just before the film ends, Joan warns Nathaniel that if he sullies her husband's name, she'll sue and promises David that she will sit both of them down and tell them the truth.
Despite the issues with it, like how and why does Joan fall in love with Joe? And the fact that Joe's a jerk and acts put upon when he was the one cooking dinner and caring for the children while Joan wrote away, is no catch but nevertheless, she sometimes worships the ground he walks on. And it was too predictable that the book and script simply kills off Joe at the end. But Joan remains ridiculously loyal past the grave. The truth could have come out. Nathaniel would have backed her up, but she chose to honor his memory and she scarified all her dreams for his. She loved him more than she loved herself.
Though Close plays a character who puts the suffering on herself, she is brilliant with her face a glass into her emotions. She better get another Oscar nomination for this as she is breathtaking. The performances make the film and each actor is excellent and none more so than Close. She is what makes this film memorable and superb. Grade: A-