Woman In Gold

Films about the Holocaust come out every year, so when a film about the modern impact that dark time in history is made, you would get quite excited to see how this event still affects so many people to this day. And while I'm not at all adverse to seeing an intense legal drama (both To Kill a Mockingbird and A Time to Kill are great legal dramas), that backdrop may not work as well here.

Woman In Gold takes place in 1998, when young, struggling lawyer Randy Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds) is introduced to his mother's Austrian friend Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren). Maria's sister has recently died and she has found some letters that her sister sent to the Austrian government asking about the restitution of her family's paintings that were stolen from her family by the Nazis, namely the famous Gustav Klimt portrait of her aunt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. Maria enlists Randy's help in the legal case and while at first he is reluctant, he soon decides to help. The pair travel to Vienna, where a symbolic conference is being held on the restitution of these types of artworks and they begin their case. Whilst in Austria, they meet investigative journalist Hubertus Czernin (Daniel Brühl) who helps them with their research.

This movie staggers along at an odd pace. At times you are being swept up in the progress that Randy is making with the case and at other times it slows right down, as Maria and Randy share a tender moment of understanding and while that sounds completely normal of a drama, it happens at odd and inopportune times. Randy's wife Pam also shows up, but only at times when Randy is having a crisis of faith and needs some outside direction. The film makes a big effort to not have to use subtitles the whole time as Maria does not wish to speak German whilst in Austria, but then this extends to the other non-American characters speaking to each other in English, even on Austrian TV. I feel like this was a bit lazy and could have been changed.

The film also features flashbacks to Maria's youth in Vienna, both before and during the Nazi occupation. Here she is played by Canadian actress Tatiana Maslany and her husband Frederick is portrayed by Max Irons. These sequences show how serene her home life was before the Nazis, but are also quite open in showing the brutality of the Nazis. Also when the couple are fleeing Austria, the tension and fear they felt comes through.

Ryan Reynolds carries most of the acting in this film and has really been showing his dramatic range in the past few years (presumably to drop the stigma attached with The Green Lantern). Even in shots that aren't particularly focused on his character, he shines with his subtle performance. Helen Mirren on the other hand, plays the character similarly to the ones she has over the last couple of years, especially her role in The Hundred Foot Journey. Tatiana Maslany does a much better job playing the younger version of Maria and is full of emotion. Daniel Brühl brings incredible emotion to the role of Hubertus and Katie Holmes supports the main cast well.

Woman In Gold offers enjoyable viewing, but doesn't try too hard to make a splash. There are some emotional scenes, but not enough to make the entire film one that you will cry the whole way through. Just like in Dumb and Dumber there is a joke about the confusion between Austria and Australia.