Movie Review: Woman in Gold

Woman in Gold

Release Date: April 3rd 2015
Director: Simon Curtis
Writers: Alexi Kaye Campbell, E. Randol Schoenberg
Main Cast: Helen Mirren, Ryan Reynolds, Daniel Brühl
Running Time: 110 mins
MPAA Rating: PG-13

Official Sites: Facebook | IMDb

WOMAN IN GOLD is the remarkable true story of one woman's journey to reclaim her heritage and seek justice for what happened to her family. Sixty years after she fled Vienna during World War II, 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. Together with her inexperienced but plucky young lawyer Randy Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds), 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.

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Woman in Gold is a film based on the true story of Maria Altman, a Jewish woman who escaped Nazi-occupied Austria during World War II, and her struggle to reclaim a famed portrait of her aunt from the Austrian government. The film stars Helen Mirren, Ryan Reynolds and Daniel Bruhl as the the group set on righting a theft that occurred sixty years prior.

I very much enjoyed Woman in Gold. Helen Mirren is always great. Her in any film is worth the price of admission. She played the role of Maria Altmann sincerely and convincingly. Ryan Reynolds, as Altmann's inexperienced attorney, was also very good. He was better in this film than he is in a lot of the romantic comedies in which he stars. Daniel Bruhl finished the trio nicely as the Viennese helping hand who has his own reasons for wanting to correct the injustices suffered by Altmann.

Be ready to flash back in time for this one. The film is about equally divided between the present and Nazi-occupied Austria sixty years before. The time jumps worked well. I enjoyed seeing Austria before the War took it's toll. The scenery is beautiful.

The film is very emotional. But, it's not overly sad or sappy. There is a line in the dialogue which resonates as true. "Not everything is about the Holocaust." This movie is just that. It is about many of the other injustices of World War II, and I think it's important in that regard.

I wish you would go see this one. It's not going to be a huge blockbuster, but it's a fine movie. The events in the film really happened. At then end, there are pictures of the people on who this movie is based. That brought a tear to my eye. Go see Woman in Gold when in opens this weekend.

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