Woman in Gold feels rather like a Jewish version of Philomena as this too is about an older woman seeking justice for what has been stolen from her in the past but, unlike the Jewish version of almost everything, this is not in any way superior, and may even be a dud. It is based on a true story, which is an excellent and fascinating story, but it’s the storytelling that counts, and the storytelling here is not only familiar and pedestrian, but so emotionally manipulative that it doesn’t come with one sentimental ending, but several in quick succession. ‘Oh good, it’s over,’ you will think to yourself, as you make to rise from your cinema seat, but what’s this coming at you? Yet another sentimental ending? Every character gets their own? Luckily, there is no such thing as Death By Sentimental Endings, or I would not be here to tell the tale.
Helen Mirren plays Maria Altmann, an elderly Austrian Jewish woman who fled Vienna and the Nazis during the second world war and settled in California. The film opens in 1998, with the death of her sister, which reawakens in her all that happened and prompts her into having another stab at reclaiming the five portraits by Gustav Klimt which had belonged to her family and now hang in Austria’s famous Belvedere palace. She hires a young lawyer (Ryan Reynolds), the son of fellow Austrian immigrants, although is he reluctant to take on the case initially? You bet. Does he say he’s busy and has better things to do? You bet. Does he come round, eventually? That too. Does he wear glasses which he will remove every time he needs to express a deep emotion, particularly when he reconnects to his own heritage? And that. Does this prove we have all been here before? Yes.
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