The last time Helen Mirren went up against the Nazis, in The Debt, it was really no contest. So you will not be surprised to learn that the Austrian art thieves of the Third Reich fare no better against her Holocaust refugee Maria Altmann. Woman in Gold takes its title from the alternate, Nazi-supplied moniker for Gustav Klimt’s 1907 Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer. Adele was Maria’s beloved aunt, and Maria became the plaintiff in a long-fought art-restitution case, begun in 1998, against the Austrian government. Now you can bet this film would not have been made had Maria lost that case, which bounced between Austrian tribunals (rigged, naturlich) and the U.S. Supreme Court. The movie’s postscript will refresh your memory of past newspaper headlines, but the chief pleasure to Woman in Gold lies in its complete absence of surprise.
First, the Vienna-by-way-of Echo Park accent: Mirren perfectly channels Dr. Ruth’s mixture of Continental severity and relaxed American vernacular. Upholding her formality has become a joke to Maria, too, after five decades running a L.A. clothing boutique. Then there’s her sidekick—Ryan Reynolds’ unseasoned young attorney Randy Schoenberg (forever judged against his genius forebear Arnold Schoenberg). Too often positioned as a leading man or superhero because of his jawline (e.g., Green Lantern), Reynolds is better as an insecure bumbler. His forever-darting eyes make me think of Stan Laurel: a man always on the verge of panic, hysteria, or locking himself in a bathroom stall to cry (as Randy actually does in this picture). And those pleated Dockers!
This odd couple is obviously going to prevail against the stubborn, post-Waldheim Austrian establishment. As Maria says, “If they admit to one thing, they have to admit to it all.” One small victory for the Jews will mean total defeat for the Austrians. (Though the five paintings stolen from the Bloch-Bauers would later be auctioned for the not-so-small sum of $330 million.) Were the writing better, this would’ve made a good courtroom procedural (Elizabeth McGovern and Jonathan Pryce show up as judges), but director Simon Curtis (My Week With Marilyn) instead chooses to add copious flashbacks to the Anschluss era and Maria’s narrow escape from the Nazis. So while this is a star vehicle that depends on Mirren’s reliably purring V-12 engine, two other actresses play Maria at different ages—depriving us of the regular pleasure of her smackdowns upon poor Randy.
In my favorite moment in this serviceable, satisfying film, Mirren disdainfully holds a donut on her upturned fingers while Reynolds navigates his battered Jetta along the freeway to yet another court date. Drive faster, she says impatiently, ze chocolate is melting. I smiled just a little bit more because Mirren recently said she wants to be in the next Fast and the Furious movie (if there is one). Drive faster is right. And let there be more Nazis for her to smite.
bmiller@seattleweekly.com
WOMAN IN GOLD Opens Wed., April 1 at Pacific Place. (Expands to Guild 45th and other theaters Friday.) Rated PG-13. 110 minutes.
