Woman in Gold

We've all seen films based on true stories before--you know, major well known stories that can go back years and decades ago, but it's always interesting to see the 'smaller' stories that mainstream society rarely if ever knows about. We saw one a year ago in February called "The Monuments Men" about a small band of men who, during WWII, recovered a ton of art in Europe stolen from the Nazis. Now we have a little known true story also within the WWII arena entitled "Woman in Gold".

This is the remarkable true story of one woman's journey to reclaim her heritage and seek justice for what happened to her family, and for the deaths, destruction and massive art theft perpetrated by the Nazis. Sixty years after she fled Vienna during WWII, an elderly Jewish woman, Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren), starts her journey to retrieve family possessions seized by the Nazis, among them Klimt's famous painting "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I", her aunt (Antje Traue). Together with her inexperienced but plucky young lawyer Randy Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds) and an Austrian requisitions investigator, Hubertus Czernin (Daniel Bruhl), she embarks upon a major battle which takes them all the way to the heart of the Austrian establishment and the U.S. Supreme Court, and forces her to confront difficult truths about the past along the way.

Others to round out the past are Katie Holmes as Pam Schoenberg, Randy's wife, Tatiana Maslany as Young Maria Altmann, Max Irons as Fritz Altmann, Charles Dance as Sherman, Randy's boss, Jonathan Pryce as Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Frances Fisher as Barbara Schoenberg, Elizabeth McGovern as Judge Florence Cooper, Henry Goodman as Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, Allan Coruner as Gustav, Nina Kunzendorf as Therese Bloch-Bauer and Rolf Saxon as Stan Gould.

This was incredibly well directed by Simon Curtis ("My Summer with Des" (TV movie) '98, "The Prince of Hearts" (TV movie) '98, "David Copperfield" (TV movie) '99, "Man and Boy"  (TV movie) '02, "Born in the USA" (TV movie) '07, "A Short Stay in Switzerland" (TV movie) '09, "My Week with Marilyn" '11). I say incredibly because considering his minimal feature film experience, the pacing and staging was definitely seasoned. What actually served this guy was the amount of TV movies he's directed. He has proved himself worthy to delve into feature films. Have you seen "My Week with Marilyn"? This was an amazing film! Part of it might be that this guy is simply a natural, but whatever reason, Curtis knows actors and knows what emotions to extract from them. It was written by Alexi Kaye Campbell based on the life stories by E. Randol Schoenberg and Maria Altmann. Other than a ton of acting credits to her name, Campbell has only one other screenplay to her credit. Knowing this, this screenplay should've been mediocre at best, however, this script was well thought out, cohesive, especially when going from past to present and back again. There were a cople of places that were a bit slow and didn't follow as well as they could have, but I've seen films that are similar to this by seasoned writers that didn't come close to the caliber as this presented. The story isn't what I'd call a 'stand up and cheer' film, but there's a certain resolve that lends a sense of peace when watching it.

If the story isn't enough to keep you riveted to that theater seat, Mirren's performance certainly will. Her dialect was spot on and to just watch her act is pure enjoyment in and of itself. What more do you want for that price of admission--an interesting story, great acting, even by Reynolds, all backed up with a just message. You gotta love it!

Out of 4 Stars: 3.5                               Rated: PG-13                                  110mins.