Film Reviews: The Wife, Black '47 and Skate Kitchen

The correct answer is Peter O’Toole who had to play the bridesmaid at eight different ceremonies. 

Pedants get a half a point for naming seven-times loser Richard Burton but only if they annoyingly bring up the lifetime achievement award Meryl Streep handed to O’Toole in 2002. 

If they then cockily point out that Streep has a record 21 nominations (and three wins), they lose three points and gain a withering look. 

This is a serious quiz not a forum for show-offs. Now, a slightly tougher one. Which living actor is the biggest Oscar loser? 

That unenviable record is held by Glenn Close, who has had to gallantly clap rivals to the stage at six different Academy Award ceremonies. 

And weirdly, an awards bash is at the heart of the film that should earn her a seventh nomination. 

The shock ending of The Wife, an adaptation of Meg Wolitzer’s 2003 novel, plays out at the 1992 Nobel Prize ceremony, a far less glitzy affair staged in no-nonsense Sweden. 

In the opening scene, Joan Castleman (Close) seems delighted when her husband of 30 years Joe (Jonathan Pryce) gets a late-night phone call informing him he’s just won the Literature gong. 

The pair bounce on their bed like children but when the esteemed American novelist begins to jokily sing: “I’ve won the Nobel!” a flicker of resentment darts across her face. 

We see that face again on the flight to Sweden when Joe rudely rebuffs a hack (Christian Slater) who is writing a tell-all biography. 

He is a little intrusive but it seems to be his assertion that “the spouse never gets enough credit” that riles the literary icon. 

We’ll get more glimpses of Joe’s dark side when he refuses to offer encouragement to their aspiring writer son David (Max Irons) and learn of decades of affairs. 

A series of slightly clunky flashbacks relate how they met in 1958 when Joan (now played by Annie Starke) was a bright student and Joe (Harry Lloyd) was her married creative writing teacher. 

After Joe leaves his wife the couple start a family and settle into the rhythm of married life. 

The pattern of their relationship is set early on when Joe becomes a success with his first novel. 

After this Joan seems content to stay in the background, abandoning her own literary ambitions to prop up Joe’s fragile ego. 

By now it’s clear that we’re watching an actors’ movie. 

There has been no showy camerawork, moody lighting or fancy editing. 

Director Bjorn Runge is letting his leading actors ask all the questions. They both play it beautifully. 

At a pre-awards banquet Joe’s vanity begins to stir as he glad-hands dignitaries, loudly quotes James Joyce and flirts shamelessly with his personal photographer. 

But the limelight has a very different effect on Joan. 

Close’s expressive face suggests that some long-held resentment is beginning to simmer. 

By the time the gongs are handed out we can almost hear the lid rattling. 

It’s a wonderfully understated performance that uses a very different set of acting muscles to the role that brought her first Best Actress nomination in 1987. 

That year, Close came close with Fatal Attraction but lost out to Moonstruck’s Cher. 

Can she go one better? I suspect not. I reckon she will have to go through it all again in February when she has to clap another upstart singer to the stage. 

If Lady Gaga does win for A Star Is Born, I will have predicted the Best Actress winner in September. But overlooked Close deserves a lot better. If an Italian outlaw film is a Spaghetti Western, what do you call one from Ireland? 

Director Lance Daly has given us an answer. 

“That joke has already been made” he told The Irish Times, “it’s a potato western”. 

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Black ’47 ****

It’s 1847, the potatoes have failed, the Irish are starving and the British are stealing all the grain in Black ’47.

Grizzled Irish Ranger Martin Feeney (James Frecheville) returns from wars in Afghanistan to find his family home demolished and his mother and brother dead. Discovering the frozen remains of his sister-in-law is the tipping point. 

The hardened killer vows to wreak his revenge, one musket shot at a time. 

As the bodies pile up, the British force an old comrade to track him down before the bloodshed reaches the estate of Jim Broadbent’s landowner. 

The Pat Garrett to Frecheville’s Billy The Kid is Hannah (Hugo Weaving), a cockney cop who knows precisely how tricky it will be to bring Feeney to justice. 

An ambitious English captain (Freddie Fox), naive private (Barry Keoghan) and whiskey-soaked local (Stephen Rea) are recruited into his posse. 

Frecheville doesn’t have the charisma of Clint Eastwood but the elegant cinematography, stirring soundtrack and thrilling shoot-outs keep things ticking over. 

In the finale Daly makes clever use of the low-tech weapons of the era. 

The guns take an age to load, providing added suspense to a thrilling siege on a British fort. 

Director Crystal Moselle made her name with the acclaimed documentary The Wolfpack and her first fictional film brings a bracing sense of authenticity to the coming-of-age drama. 

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Skate Kitchen ****

Skate Kitchen takes us inside an-all girl skateboard gang from New York. 

The characters look and sound real because they are. 

Moselle’s decision to cast real skaters in the lead roles give a familiar plot an edge. 

In an opening scene we see lonely Long Island teenager Camille (Rachelle Vinberg) perform some “valid” tricks on her board before suffering an intimate injury known as getting “credit carded” (chew that over for a bit and wince). 

Her mother (Elizabeth Rodriguez) is horrified. 

From now on, she’ll have to lower her board out of her bedroom window on a piece of string if she wants to go to the skatepark. 

But her defiance pays off when she takes a trip to Manhattan. 

Camille has never had many friends but her skills see her quickly invited to join a rowdy gang led by loudmouth lesbian Kurt (a scene-stealing Nina Moran). 

The plot feels underpowered but the performances keep you on board.