Review: ‘Woman in Gold’ is an emotional true story 70 years in the making

Posted on April 17, 2015

By MARK VIOLA

Last year, we got the film “Monuments Men,” which depicted the Allied effort to recover artwork looted and hoarded by the Nazis during World War II. That film mostly failed because it tried to take on a subject much too broad and large to ever encapsulate into a two-hour film. If you’re going to tell a story about the horrors committed by the Nazi regime, you either need a longer narrative form such as a television mini-series–which is what I suggested would have worked better for “Monuments Men”–or a narrower the focus to increase the impact.

And that is what we get in “Woman in Gold,” which takes on the issue of the approximately 100,000 paintings looted during World War II from occupied countries and Jewish families throughout Europe which have still not been returned to their rightful owners 70 years after the war.

To this end, the film follows the real life story of Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren, “The Queen”), a Jewish refugee living in California who took on the Austrian government in order to get back a series of paintings stolen from her family’s home shortly after Austria was taken over by the Nazis.

Directed by Simon Curtis (“My Week with Marilyn”), the film tells a dual story set both in the present and in the past, bridging the seven decades in between with an emotional script from Alexi Kaye Campbell and powerful performances from Mirren, Ryan Reynolds (“Safe House”) and the rest of the cast. Serving as a reminder of just how cruel mankind can be while also working as a compelling legal drama, the film is more serious fare than we usually get this time of year, but it’s a nice change of pace from its bigger, louder cinematic neighbors.

“Woman in Gold” is a surprisingly heavy movie with great performances and a story that is well worth seeing.

The film is rated PG-13 for some thematic elements and brief strong language.

(This is a shortened version of the full review available in our printed or e-edition papers.)

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