Discuss The Wife
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I liked it, but...
posted by Kewl KatSTAFFMOD on February 5, 2019 at 5:02 PM
I don't understand why they couldn't have always been honest about being a writing team. The husband, at least at the beginning, would come up with the theme of the story. He had the ideas. Then the wife would breathe life into the story with her characters and attention to detail. Why they would let it get to the point of only one person getting all the recognition was shortsighted. Obviously, it would lead to resentment and anger. This is not like that movie about the lady who made the big eyed paintings but let her husband take the credit. The wife did all the work. That was not how it was in this case, though. They needed each other. Neither of these people would have been famous without the other.
Reply by globalistas
on February 7, 2019 at 7:18 PM
And that's exactly why the conflict felt contrived and why I give this one a 5/10. The screenwriting wasn't anything to write home about either methinks.
This review sums it up very nicely. I just don't get why most other critics don't see the same faults with the premise and the writing:
https://eu.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/movies/2018/08/30/movie-review-cast-better-than-material-thin-wife/1135248002/
Reply by Fergoose
on January 27, 2022 at 4:44 PM
spoilers
I didn't find it too contrived. Joan didn't enjoy any sort of limelight or attention (which he revelled in) and had the notion (rightly or wrongly) that writing under her own name, or co-writing would have doomed their commercial prospects due to the prejudice she witnessed first hand working at a publishers.
Plus she appeared to love her husband, pitied him and wanted to elevate him and make him happy in their younger years. She may also have thought his outlines of stories did really contribute to how good the books were (despite her bitter words at the end). So there were at least three separate elements behind the lie that I felt were well fleshed out in the film quite deftly.
Once the lie was created I think it would be understandable to be trapped both commercially and in terms of keeping it secret from the kids (rather than tell them they'd been living a lie).
Over the years he took it for granted. "We got published" became "I got a Nobel". He treated her with contempt with affairs. So her bitterness only came later and boiled over when, for the first time, someone else shined a light on the issue and she could see her pompous husband putting down their son.
I thought it was really good throughout. Similarish in its themes to Whiplash (who deserves credit behind greatness) but without such a strong ending.
7/10