Thursday, May 21, 2015

Film Review - Woman in Gold (2015)

Woman in Gold is based off of a true story and stars Helen Mirren as Maria Altmann a Jewish woman who flees to America from Nazi occupied Austria but one of the pieces of art taken from her was a portrait of her Aunt Adele so she hires a lawyer Randol (Ryan Reynolds) to take her case to the court in terms of getting her portrait back.

Woman in Gold was a nice surprise for me and I think a lot of that comes down to the story and characters whose plight I found myself getting invested in, Mirren was very good here and made up for her underwhelming efforts in the Hundred Foot Journey, Reynolds put me off at first but when the film was over I thought to myself "Now that casting makes sense" and it sure was nice to see Daniel Bruhl from Rush again in a supporting role and all three together made for a trio I found worth caring about.

The film also has a very interesting story at its core in terms of the Nazi occupation of Poland and the good and bad it brought as well as the sides people took for better or worse and at times I was waiting for the penny to drop in terms of the plight of young Maria (played by Tatiana Maslany) and the Nazi Soldiers occupying her home and it does create a tense sequence in the movie.

All in all Woman in Gold is worth seeing for its interesting story and characters and especially if you miss seeing films aimed at grownups hopefully Bruhl will get a meaningful role in Captain America Civil War next year but sadly I fear he will be wasted in that film, 3 out of 5.

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