A follow-up to Tom Noonan's impressive debut, The Wife is a bizarre, often provocative, serio-comic dissection of marraige as a fragile yet universal institution; an ambitious art film that's not quite emotionally satisfying.

I think this material benefits from being filmed. It craves the closeups. Four people on a stage would be too far away.

"Joe" (Jonathan Pryce) has won the Nobel prize for literature and so must travel with his wife "Joan" (Glenn Close) to Stockholm to receive the award from the King of Sweden. Embarking on Concorde (which never flew to Stockholm) the couple arrive to be feted by Nobel literati and pestered by "Nathanial" (Christian Slater) who is determined to write a biography of this author. Neither husband nor wide want anything to do with him, and swiftly we learn that their son "David" (Max Irons) doesn't really want too much to do with his father, either. Using some flashbacks to their courting days, we learn a little about this couple and discover that much of their lives is but a façade with secrets and rancour galore in their marital closet. It's a drunken chat between the son and the journalist that proves to be the familial flashpoint and the timing could hardly be worse! Whilst most of the acting plaudits must go to a calculating performance from Close, Pryce isn't terrible either - unlike messrs. Slater and Irons who really add little to a story that takes about five minutes to work out. It's all watchable enough, but there's no chemistry nor does it feel very natural at any point in the proceedings. Sure, the whole Nobel paraphernalia doesn't make that too easy, but somehow it's like a short stage play that someone has decided would make for a film - without really realising just h…

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